A RAILWAY FOREST ENTERPRISE 395 



sign, not only for Massachusetts but for New England as a whole, for the 

 membership and influence of the Chamber extend over that entire section. 

 Through an energetic committee on forestry, composed of active business and 

 professional men, some of them lumbermen, and all much interested and 

 well-posted in the subject, the Chamber is working in harmony with the 

 forestry association, and is ready to enter fields not so readily accessible 

 to the association. The machinery for producing important results is, there- 

 fore, well-nigh perfect in Massachusetts, and there is no reason why it should 

 not work smoothly and speedily. The test will come during the next twelve 

 months. 



A RAILWAY'S FOREST ENTERPRISE 



By FILIBERT ROTH. 



XT IS well known that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for years 

 past, has been actively engaged in the agricultural development of the 

 great Canadian Northwest. Not only has the company encouraged and 

 assisted agricultural settlement, but it has established experiment stations, 

 demonstration farms, irrigation enterprises, etc., to develop right crops and 

 right methods for the best utilization of the great plains lands. 



Of late this company has turned its attention also to forestry. As a 

 holder of large areas of forest lands in different portions of Canada, notably 

 British Columbia, it has begun work in the usual quiet and yet energetic and 

 businesslike way which so long has been a distinguishing feature of this 

 company. The objects and policy of the company, as indicated by the head 

 of the forestry department, are primarily to develop thorough protection for 

 the great forest wealth along the lines of the railway. That this is a most 

 timely enterprise, meeting with the hearty approval of every right-minded 

 person, interested in the welfare of Canada, goes without saying. 



The necessity for this was amply demonstrated by the experience of 1910 

 and by the enormous destruction of forests of other recent years. But in 

 addition to this work of fire protection, the company plans also the establish- 

 ment of a regular forest service to take charge of certain forest tracts and 

 develop on these tracts a system of forestry, well planned and thoroughly 

 suited to the country, to the forest, the land and climate, and to the economic 

 conditions of the different regions in which these forests are to be selected. 

 That such work will serve, like the agricultural stations, as a valuable object 

 lesson, is quite apparent. That these forests may also serve as supply areas 

 for the timber used by the company, would seem quite natural, though this 

 appears rather secondary in the program at the present time. At present 

 the company has a number of educated young foresters in addition to its 

 old staff of experienced timbermen and all in all, it has probably the best 

 organized and most promising forest service of any private concern in the 

 New World. 



That this development will serve a most valuable purpose, not only for the 

 railway company itself, but for Canada and for each of the provinces, is 

 evident ; and the work will be watched with great interest by every friend 

 of forestry. Good Speed! 



