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Canadian Forestry Journal, May, 1918 



other New England Slates, Pen- 

 nsylvania and the mountains well 

 on down into the Carol inas. From 

 the first coming of the Europeans 

 it has been menaced and in many 

 ways: 



1. Vast areas were cleared for 

 agricultural purposes; most of these 

 areas will always be devoted to 

 food production, but we now realize 

 that lands of no inconsiderable pro- 

 portion are uns.iited for such pur- 

 poses and that the removal of the 

 forest svas a mistake, and so we 

 discover in the majority of cases 

 the reason for the abandoned farms 

 and fields to be found in all parts 

 of the white pine area, and not alone 

 in New England and the Trent water- 

 shed of Ontario; the problem of 

 reforesting these sections has been 

 confronting us for many years and 

 is now more acute than ever. 



2. Prodigality on the part of the 

 early settlers and of their descendants. 

 They and we have looked upon our 

 pine as on our wild game and other 

 natural wealth, as something that 

 could be destroyed, often without 

 rhyme or reason, often for very 

 temporary gain, without regard to 

 the future — happily we are coming 

 to a more reasoning attitude, but 

 necessity may be given some credit 

 for that. 



3. Unscientific methods of lumber- 

 ing, which includes waste — often 

 criminal in extent, disregard of pro- 

 vision for the natural restoration 

 of the forest and failure to dispose 

 of the slash, leaving it as the almost 

 certain starting point of fires and 

 as a nursery for various destructive 

 fungi. 



The Toll of Fire 



4. Fire has been from the first 

 and still continues to be much to 

 jur shame and our countless loss — 

 the agent most destructive of our 

 pine and other forest wealth. It 

 has been and continues to be a veri- 

 table demon of destruction in spite 

 of the fact that it could be largely 

 controlled. It is said that "through 

 fire waste alone more timber had 

 been destroyed in the Dominion 

 than had been felled by the woods- 



man's axe for ordinary commercial 

 purposes." "This is nothing short 

 of appalling when we take into ac- 

 count the fact that the primary for- 

 est products of the country have a 

 value of approximately .3175,000,000 

 annually, and the output is being 

 imperiled through a waste that is 

 largely preventable." In this con- 

 nection Senator Edwards has declared 

 that "it will be only a few years 

 when lumbering will be so reduced 

 that, excepting west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, it will be a very small 

 industry indeed in Canada." It is 

 also affirmed that "white pine, which 

 was long the leading commercial 

 tree of Canadian forests, is supplying 

 less lumber than it did five years 

 ago by over forty per cent., while 

 its proportion to the total cut of 

 all kinds is only about one-fifth." 



Timber-destroying Fungi. 



5. These have always been at 

 work but never so destructively, 

 proportionately at least, as now, 

 for the stronger trees have been 

 removed, slash has accumulated, and 

 fire has made open scars which make 

 their access sure and easy. With 

 the diminished stock left, the losses 

 from this source become constantly 

 more significant. If anyone doubts 

 this statement he has but to examine 

 any run of logs and note the number 

 that are defective. Little attention 

 has been paid to this matter because 

 there have been enough good trees 

 to supply the demand; but this fac- 

 tor must receive attention, for the 

 effect of removing the strong and 

 healthy from the forest, leaving the 

 weakened members is certain to 

 produce much the same efTect in 

 the forest as in human society. 



The Blister Rust of the Pine 



6. The blister rust is a new comer 

 from Europe and a very real menace- 

 one that may render nugatory our 

 efforts at reforestation with white 

 pine, one that may spread with 

 disastrous results to some of our 

 most highly-valued western pines 

 and one that may in time render 

 futile the efforts we are making to 

 preserve our white pine from des- 



