Canadian Forestry Journal, April, 1918 



1639 



St. Maurice having lo procure pulp- 

 wood from the northern forests of 

 the lower St. Lawrence to sup- 

 plement the wasted resources nearer 

 home. Xor are these conditions 

 alone peculiar to the St. Maurice. 

 New Ontario is making rapid strides 

 towards copying . the destructive 

 methods of old Ontario. Even Brit- 

 ish Columbia will wake up before 

 long to find that statistical experts 

 have their peculiarities. 



When we realize that pulp wood 

 and lumber operations annually cut 

 clean an area of two to three million 

 acres leaving little or no chance 

 for reforestation, natural or other- 

 wise, perhaps someone whose busi- 

 ness it is to think of these things 

 will "start something." All power 

 to him when he does! 



But the question persists, — what 

 is the solution of the difficulty? 



How are we to prevent the wiping 

 out of our coniferous forests? 



A Question of Cost 



It is purely a ciuestion of cost — 

 not exorbitant either. And it is 

 not necessarily "up to" the Govern- 

 ments, though experience teaches 

 that they may properly be requested 

 to keep their politicians out of the 

 discussion. The solution should be 

 brought about by the manufacturers 

 of forest products and when they 

 convene to this end they must 

 be permitted to co-operate without 

 having unjust accusations of price- 

 manipulation hurled at them. For 

 be it understood that if Canadian 

 forests are to be saved from destruc- 

 tion they must be properly managed 

 — call it scientific or practical manage- 

 ment, if you wish, but it will be 

 pure common sense nevertheless. 

 And it will cost something; just 

 how much is difficult to estimate, 

 but the point is that the consumer 

 obviously must pay for it. Hitherto 

 the cost of spruce pulpwood has 

 been so low that the ordinary man 

 could see no advantage in conserving 

 something that had no particular 

 value. Waste therefore started in 

 the lumber camp and has been 

 maintained right through to the 



press room where it reached its 

 maximum. 



Since the forest provides the raw 

 product for the largest industry in 

 Canada, the manufacturer of pulp 

 and paper with whom rests the 

 initiative in this vital matter is 

 about due to act in no uncertain 

 manner for the conservation of the 

 forest by proper management and 

 operation. 



He realizes or should realize that 

 it takes one hundred and fifty years 

 to grow a mature spruce forest 

 but by taking advantage cf the nat- 

 ural conditions offered in our existing 

 forests the period of miaximum volume 

 growth may be perpetuated with 

 the result that a vastly greater 

 forest crop may be relied upon. 

 We know, for instance, that trees 

 grow by accretion of outer rings — 

 adding one each year, therefore the 

 larger the tree the greater will be 

 the volume of accretion. The idea 

 in operation then is to keep the 

 forest at that stage of maximum 

 annual increment cutting only the 

 largest trees and leaving the other 

 immature ones undamaged by too 

 much thinning or insufficient cut- 

 ting — a process to be guided by 

 local conditions and under experi- 

 enced men. Proper management 

 further requires the suppression of 

 inferior or damaging species, also 

 seeding or planting where necessary 

 to assist or supplement nature's efforts. 



Wider Areas of Operation 



All this necessitates operation each 

 year over very large areas compared 

 with the areas now cut clean and 

 left to utter destruction as forest 

 land. It will require intricate road 

 systems, gradual cleaning up of under- 

 brush, permanent camps and steady 

 expansion to eventually embrace the 

 whole of our forests — -a process that 

 must necessarily take many years 

 to complete. The capital expen- 

 diture involved will be great but 

 no better investment could be un- 

 dertaken when considered on a per- 

 manent basis looking to the future. 



Once the system is established, 

 operating costs will become* much 

 less but, whatever happens, pulp- 



