1820 



Canadian Forestry Journal, August, 9118 



Do Private Woodlands "Pay"? 



By John C. Archibald 

 Royal English Arbor icultural Society 



The practice of forestry has up 

 to now been carried on in a ver^^ half- 

 hearted manner, because the im- 

 pression prevailed that it did not pay, 

 and was at best an expensive fad. 

 We all pay more or less for our fads, 

 but we have no right to blame wood- 

 lands for not pa>dng when they have 

 been deliberately spoiled so as to 

 attain some other object. Again, in 

 times of stress upon an estate it is 

 generally the woods that pay, and 

 the exactment of this payment is not 

 always done scientifically. No one 

 has the right to view such misman- 

 agement and say, "I'm sure my woods 

 don't pay"; the blame lies \\ith them- 

 selves. One result of the non-paying 

 impression has been that there has 

 been no definite trial on any scale 

 to make forestry pay, and it is cer- 

 tainly more by the fortunes of war 

 than" by anything else that our tim- 

 ber, both old and young, is paying 

 so well to-day. 



Forestry in our country and in our 

 varied climate is distinctly a pro- 

 fession in which hope plays a large 

 part, but we nearly always find that 

 with right treatment and judgment 

 this hope is ver\^ often justified. We 

 are now receiving a chance for im- 

 provement that may never be pos- 

 sible again if we allow it to pass by. 

 On the other hand, if it be taken 

 we can snap our fingers at foreign 

 competition. We would have the 

 timber, and not only that, but a 

 very superior and more durable class 

 of timber than any that could be 

 supplied from abroad. We will have 

 many difficulties to surmount, and we 

 may make some serious mistakes 

 but we gain the best experience from 

 such tuition. Let us then go for- 

 ward to our planting and regenera- 

 tion in a large, a very large spirit 

 of zeal, hope and trust, and without 

 fail we shall not be disappointed in 

 results. 



LUMBERMEN AND PUBLIC WEAL 



Commenting aptly upon the re- 

 cent formation of the "New Bruns- 

 wick Lumberman's Association" the 

 Fredericton Gleaner says: 



"It is unnecessary to dilate upon 

 the importance of the lumber industry 

 in this province; everybody fully 

 realizes that next to agriculture, it is 

 the greatest industry we have, both 

 in the amount of capital involved, 

 the returns it brings in, and the 

 wages paid to those engaged in it. 

 Under such circumstances, while the 

 improvement of the conditions sur- 

 rounding the industry is actually of 

 most immediate consequence to those 

 actively engaged in it, at the same 

 time its ramifications extend in many 

 directions, and the welfare of so 

 many people depends to a greater or 

 less extent upon its prosperity, that 

 it becomes more or less a matter of 

 pubhc interest to see that the best 

 is made of it. 



There never was a time when the 

 conservation of our forest resources 

 was of greater moment than is the 

 case at present, and their waste in 

 every form should be reduced to the 

 lowest possible scale, and if it is not 

 practicable to quit, cut it out alto- 

 gether. Because our forest wealth 

 has been given to us freely by Na- 

 ture without any effort on our own 

 part, we have been prone to treat 

 it as an asset which we might be as 

 careless of as we pleased. Because we 

 don't have to plant before we can 

 reap, in the case of our t'mber crop, 

 we have never troubled to look very 

 far ahead in the matter of future 

 years' supplies. When one partic- 

 ular district has been stripped of its 

 trees, we have simply moved on 

 further afield, and gathered in our 

 year's cut elsewhere, without stop- 

 ping to realize that such a plan of 

 operations could not go on for ever. 



