r86 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A 



The Lesson of Canada in the province. This policy has brought 



into Canada from Michigan many mills 



T ONE of the sessions of the that formerly manufactured Ontario 

 Canadian Forestry Association held timber in that state. Quebec proposes 

 last week at Fredericton, New Bruns- to adopt a similar policy, and Mr. 

 wick, the chairman of the Canadian Sifton urged it upon the consideration 

 Conservation Commission, Hon. Clif- o f New Brunswick. He did not be- 

 ford Sifton, made an address of much u eve ft to be wise for the government to 

 interest to us on this side of the line, dispose of the fee in its timber lands. 

 We are accustomed to think of Canada When so disposed of they became sub- 

 as a country of big woods and inex- j ect to taxation by the state, which to 

 haustible timber supply, looking at it in obtain as large a revenue as possible 

 much the same careless fashion that we fixed a high rate which encouraged 

 have been wont to regard our own con- lumbermen to cut the timber as rapidly 

 ditions until we were aroused, most of as possible. The Dominion policy is to 

 us, to the actual situation. Not long j ease ] and on renewal terms and to 

 ago a German forest expert^ was sent continue the leases as long as the lessees 

 to Canada to report on conditions there, ij ve up to the terms of the leases, 

 and his report was to the effect that ]y[ r Sifton urged the association to 

 other countries could not look to Can- favor the establishment of forest re- 

 ada for their timber supply, that our ser ves on the eastern slopes of the 

 northern neighbor needed all of her Rocky Mountains, because unless some- 

 own product for her own uses, and was thing were done to preserve the forests 

 coming to realize it. This German re- there the country would be flooded 

 port was cited at length by the British at one seas on of the year and become 

 Royal Commission on Afforestation, in a barren waste at another. Evidently, 

 its able and instructive report recom- t he distinguished Canadian had not 

 mending the reforestation of 9,000,000 heard from the United States Weather 

 acres of land in England, and Bureau. 



providing a detailed plan for financing The mOral o f a n tr ,i s is that, like all 

 and carrying out this work through a the rest of t he civilized world, Canada 

 series of years, in order that England is measur i ng her timber resources and 

 might produce its own timber and be- preparing to pro tect them by pro- 

 come independent of foreign countries. ive and drastic measures against 

 In the address referred to, Mr Sifton loitation for t he benefit of waste- 

 called attention to the fact^ that the M forei countrieS) . inc i uding her 

 United States cannot supply itself with next . door neighb or. We cannot look- 

 wood for more than thirty years, and nQrth Qur salvation _ We must 

 declared that shoud it become neces remaining resources 

 sary for the United States to look to , 

 Canada for a further supply of wood, and P lant trees wherever they can be 

 all the merchantable lumber in Canada's F own more Profitably than other crops, 

 forests would be exhausted at the end in order that our own future may be 

 of seven years." We quote from the assured. That is the only way. Canada 

 press report. Mr. Sifton expressed the has not the resources for her own 

 opinion that within the present genera- needs and ours too, and ^ she is suffi- 

 tion it would be necessary to place legal ciently wide awake and intelligent to 

 limitations upon the quantity of lumber guard her own. The only way that our 

 to be cut, and he believed in making a timber resources and Canada's can be 

 beginning of that policy at once. On- made inexhaustible is by the applica- 

 tario already compels all timber cut on tion of the highest scientific knowledge 

 government lands to be manufactured and the broadest common sense. 



