Canadian Foresfrij Journal, March, 1918 



1597 



Where large quantities of wood 

 must be made so as to amply cover 

 the demands of the mill, some of this 

 wood must remain from one season 

 to another in ponds and lakes. This 

 entails a loss by sinking, apart from 

 careless river driving, unless special 

 steps are taken to prevent it. Here 

 again I have the opportunity of in- 

 vestigating and feel that this may be 

 prevented in a large part if properly 

 attended to. 



Finally when the preliminary for- 

 est reconnaissance is made, I think 

 our forester will discover that the 

 species of w oods required form only a 

 percentage of his forest. Spruce, as 

 we all know, is considered to be the 

 wood most suitable for newsprint. 

 Of course, we know that balsam fir 

 is almost equally good, either for 

 mechanical or chemical pulp, if treat- 

 ed separately to the spruce. Some 

 of the attempts in the past by paper 

 makers to define the quantity- of 

 balsam to be used at the same time 

 as spruce have been very amusing, 

 and other attempts to determine this 

 percentage proved absolutely that 

 they did not understand w^liat the 

 trouble was nor how to remedy it. I 

 have known fir to be blamed for 

 troubles which I knew positively were 

 caused by gas irregularities in the 

 sulphite plant. 



Harvesting Poplar 



If, as stated, the woods specified 

 for newsprint are only a small per- 

 centage of the forest stand, the cost 

 of logging operations must be much 

 greater than where, by using other 

 species, a larger part of the mature 

 forest can be cut at the same time. 

 I have in mind particularly jack pine 

 (P. banksiana; and the poplars 

 (tremuloides, balsamifera, and 

 grandidendata) which woods are cap- 

 able of producing very fine fibre if a 

 suitable plant is erected. Improve- 

 ments in methods of manufacture 

 are being made every day, so that 

 the harvesting of these woods should 

 be recommended. 



Lastly, in respect to harvesting the 

 visible crop to the limit of the Crow'n 

 restrictions: ander the present general 

 Crown tenure of timber lands, it 



seems hard, if not impossible, to sug- 

 gest any adequate means for working 

 out a rotation of cuttings or of in- 

 augurating a forest plan to include 

 reforestation or even the protection 

 of the immature growth. The 

 average investor, when told that it 

 takes nearly 150 years to grow a 

 spruce tree, is not interested and 

 fights shy of any such suggestion for 

 lack of a proper qualification of the 

 statement. Thus we find ourselves, 

 as originally premised in these re- 

 marks, with simply a period of years 

 during which it is expected to pro- 

 duce the required quantities and kinds 

 of wood. 



What Markets^ 



The result of such w^ork of course 

 changes the forest type and encoura- 

 ges the growth of the rejected species 

 so that they in turn react against the 

 restoration of original conditions. 

 Therefore, it behooves the forester in 

 a preliminary report to indicate a 

 market for woods not actually re- 

 quired in the paper making business 

 in case these woods form part of the 

 property conveyed to the investors 

 in the venture. 



Should everything be satisfactory 

 and the business carried on, the in- 

 formation required for the organiza- 

 tion and control of the water to sup- 

 ply the plant with power and to float 

 the timber to the mill can be obtained 

 at the same time as the forest survey 

 and type maps are produced, and 

 thus unnecessary cost and overlap- 

 ping will be obviated. This detailed 

 information of local areas thus serves 

 two purposes at one and the same 

 time, and is essentially the forester's 

 business. In France, the Depart- 

 ment des Eaux et Forets shows what 

 these people, who have produced some 

 of the most able foresters in the 

 world, think about it. 



Large Staff Demanded 



I think the above will show briefly 

 how forest engineering touches re- 

 lated subjects and indicates that it is 

 necessary for the forester to be 

 properly equipped to handle them to 

 his own advantage as well as to that 

 of his employer. Incidentally, in 



