1903 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



227 



wood, which, as the drainage is north- 

 ward, away from market, will for a long 

 time remain unavailable. 



Canada, with a scanty population, less 

 than six million at present, a country 

 whose climate and soil are largely fit only 

 for timber growing, the round 300 mil- 

 lion acres of actual or potential timber 

 land in the eastern provinces could be 

 made to supply a considerable amount 

 for export beyond home consumption. 

 But the same inattention to caring sys- 

 tematically for the reproduction and 

 protection of the timber crop which is 

 characteristic with us prevails in Canada 

 for the present. 



Moreover, Canada can at any time 

 close the door to further exports. In- 

 deed, there is now a movement in that 

 direction. It has been ordered that all 

 logs cut on Crown lands shall be sawed 

 within the Dominion, and a strong effort 

 will presently be made to stop the export 

 of pulp logs from the Dominion. At 

 present this is mainly intended to pre- 

 vent the raw materials from being ex- 

 ported, instead of the manufactured 

 product ; but if at any time the reduc- 

 tion of supplies makes it desirable, such 

 restrictions can easily be further ex- 

 tended. We must, therefore, rely mainly 

 on our own stores, and on our own efforts 

 at home to secure the supplies for the 

 future. 



We shall now have to find some answer 

 ' to the other set of questions, which con- 

 cern themselves with the chances for the 

 supply of these demands from home 

 sources. 



First, as to the amount of virgin tim- 

 ber still untouched and ready for use, 

 we have really no knowledge, and only 

 conjectures are possible. Yet a not quite 

 unreasonable guess as to the probabilities 

 is possible, if we have some knowledge 

 of the forest area in different sections of 

 the country, and the usual average stand 

 per acre, and gather other indications 

 leading to a probability calculation. 



The writer a few years ago ventured 

 such a calculation, having canvassed the 

 situation from many points of view, and 

 came to a statement of 2,300 billion feet, 

 B. M., still available, of which 1,400 

 billion was supposed to be coniferous 

 material. Although the census com- 



piler is at great pains to show some of 

 the details of this calculation wrong and 

 below the truth, he comes finally to 

 the conclusion that the reported total 

 amount of timber held by lumbermen, 

 namely, 215,550 million feet, is "prob- 

 ably somewhat more than one-tenth the 

 amount now standing in the country," 

 practically the writer's figure or less ; 

 and adding up the statements made re- 

 garding the standing timber of conifer- 

 ous material, only 1,100 billion feet are 

 found by the census compiler, as the 

 following tabulation of his statements 

 shows : 



The difference of the two estimates 

 would appear to lie mainly in the dis- 

 tribution of these supplies, the writer 

 accrediting the Eastern States with less, 

 the Pacific coast with a larger supply. 



The distribution of supplies is of con- 

 siderable importance commercially, for 

 it influences the location of manufacture 

 and the cost of transportation to market. 

 With the decrease of supplies in one re- 

 gion, a shifting of centers of production 

 takes place in another region. 



The census brings an interesting map 

 showing the present distribution of the 

 lumber industry. The most intense 

 concentration of this manufacture is 

 found in the northern section of Mich- 

 igan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; in the 

 middle west of New York and Pennsyl- 

 vania; in Maine and New Hampshire, 

 and on the Pacific coast in Washington, 

 and on a small territory in Oregon along 

 the Columbia River, while the centers 







