1912 AND FISHERIES COMMISSION. 139 



continue to yield at least an even production of timber, the value only 

 varying as the market price rises or falls. Under scientific manage- 

 ment, however, it has actually been proved feasible very materially to 

 increase the annual production of a forest. In 1865 the average yield 

 of 7,000,000 acres of Prussian forests was approximately 24 cubic feet, 

 affording an average revenue of 72 cents per acre; in 1904 the average 

 yield had been increased to 65 cubic feet, affording an average revenue 

 of |2.50 per acre. Indeed, not only does the rate of production in Prus- 

 sian forests appear to have been almost trebled in 75 years, but the 

 quality, also, to have been improved, seeing that the proportion of saw 

 lumber has increased from 19 per cent, to 54 per cent., while the yearly 

 revenue from this source is now upwards of |17,000,000. Whether 

 under any system by which timber limits are thrown open to public 

 tender it will ever be possible to regulate the cut to achieve the result 

 of taking only the normal increase, wi doubtful, for naturally the 

 licensee looks only to the profits to be derived from his venture and has 

 no further personal interest in the forests after the expiration of his 

 license. Indeed, so systematic and methodical must the cutting be to 

 ensure only the proper amount being taken that it cannot be doubted 

 but that, except in exceptional instances, the State, unaffected and 

 unbiassed by considerations of personal gain, is alone capable of carry- 

 ing such policy into effect. Moreover, it must be remembered that the 

 adequate protection of the forests from fire and other scourges, and 

 the proper regulation of the amounts to be cut, will under any system 

 entail a considerable expenditure. The necessity for these precautions 

 is now widely acknowledged, the only obstacle, in fact, being in most 

 cases the wherewithal to put them into effect on a sufficiently great 

 scale. Such expenditures are obviously but a reasonable insurance 

 premium on a vast but destructible asset, and yet so long as the public 

 is not fully seized of the national significance of the forests, so long 

 will there be hesitation and diffidence in embarking on increased 

 investments in this direction. At present the actual amount spent 

 annually in the Province on this form of insurance is but a fraction of 

 a mill of the material worth of the forests as wood, but a small fraction, 

 indeed, of the yearly revenue derived from the forests, and it cannot be 

 doubted that a far greater sum could with reason be allocated yearly 

 for the study, care, management and protection of the provincial forests 

 if they are to continue to exist and to afford a steady, indeed a con- 

 stantly increasing, revenue to the Province. 



Perhaps the solution of the difficulty is to be found in the princi- 

 ple of state exploitation of these resources on an increasing scale. The 

 timber area of the Province is so vast that at present, at least, there 

 would be no necessity to put an end to the existing policy of placing 

 some of the timber limits under license to private individuals, but were 

 the Government itself to undertake the exploitation of a proportion of 

 its limits and gradually expand its enterprise in this direction, it can- 



