46 Canadian Forestry Journal 



There are many townships having within their boundaries 

 considerable areas of waste lands which after trial have been 

 abandoned as unsuitable for growing field crops. The only 

 hope of restoring such lands to useful production is by refores- 

 tation, and there are many good reasons that may be urged for 

 the undertaking of the enterprise by the local municipality. 



It would be good policy for the Provinces to assist such 

 municipalities as are willing to establish municipal forest re- 

 serves by advancing the money for the purchase of the lands, 

 and by organizing an efficient forest service for their manage- 

 ment. In the course of time, varying from 15 years in the more 

 southern parts to 30 or 35 years in northern districts, the town- 

 ships would be in receipt of a steady and very considerable 

 income from their municipal forests for the easement of local 

 taxation. There are many municipalities in Europe having 

 no higher prices for forest products than obtain in Western 

 Ontario to-day whose income from such municipal forests pays 

 the entire expense of maintaining schools, roads, and other local 

 improvements, and in not a few cases there is a surplus which is 

 annually divided as a cash bonus among the citizens. 



Such a system of municipal forest reserves could with the 

 utmost advantage be extended to the newer districts where 

 townships are being opened for settlement. All that would 

 be necessary would in this case be to select and reserve from 

 location at the time of the survey a suitable area in the part 

 of the township least adapted for agriculture. Such reserves 

 being already stocked with merchantable timber w^ould be 

 capable of yielding a revenue to the municipality from the first. 



Practical Forest Management. 



The central feature of a forest policy and that which gives 

 real worth to all the rest is of course the introduction of a system 

 of practical forest management, having for its aim the perpetua- 

 tion and improvement of the forest by judicious lumbering. 



Canadian forest management will naturally differ widely 

 from European forest management, for our forests, our trans- 

 portation, our markets, and our people all differ widely. It 

 will also differ somewhat from the forestry of our neighbours to 

 the south, for there are characteristic Canadian conditions to 

 be met — not the least of which is the radical difference in forest 

 ownership and the relations existing between the lumbermen 

 and the State. Canadian foresters may of course learn much from 

 the foresters of Europe and will doubtless learn much more 

 from those of the United States where many of the conditions 

 are very similar, but in the end they must work out their own 

 salvation by the development of a system of Canadian forest 

 management designed especially to meet Canadian forest con- 

 ditions. 



