19.11 



('.(inddidii Forrsliii Journdi \ ore ruber, lUlH 



New Ways in the Woods 



By Ellwooi) Wilson, hi:fork Woodlands Section, Montreal 



We have always regarded Ihe 

 lorests as mines from M'hich we could 

 draw our timber supply. We never 

 paid much attention to the statement 

 made by the old-fashioned kind of 

 cruisers, that timber lands are pro- 

 ducing wood at the rate of three per 

 cent, per acre per annum, and now 

 we know that that statement is one 

 upon which we coidd not rely for the 

 future. Any cruiser who says that, 

 stamps himself as an ignoramus at 

 the start. They have been making 

 reports which were absolutely absurd. 

 I had occasion to go through a large 

 number of these this spring, scattered 

 from Ontario to the Labrador coast, 

 and they were obsolutely ridiculous. 



We have to get aw^ay from opin- 

 ions. We have got to get away from 

 the reports of cruisers who paddle 

 up a river and see a certain amount of 

 timber on the banks, guess at the 

 amount, and then go back and make 

 these glowing reports. 



We have always regarded the 

 forests as a mine. W^e have gone on 

 year by year cutting the timber out as 

 cheaply as we could, hoping we could 

 go back and get another cut. W^e 

 have started logging in the most 

 accessible situations, and we have 

 cut around the edges of lakes and 

 along the banks of rivers and when 

 we have been forced by lack of timber 

 to go farther into the country we 

 have gone. We have areas which 

 are very expensive to log, and in 

 order to prevent going into these 

 areas when labor is scarce and prices 

 high, w^e have tried to buy accessible 

 timber in other sections, or to buy 

 stumpage or wood from the farmers. 



W^e are practically face to face 

 with a scarcity of timber. Accessible 

 timber is becoming quite scarce and 

 we have to think a minute as to what 

 we are going to do. The price of 

 labor has reached a height which 

 makes it very difTicult to operate. 

 The price of provisions is also away 

 up. This has forced us into a position 



wiiere we have to think about the 

 future of our supplies.' If this thing 

 goes on year in and year out, the 

 price of paper and lumber will go 

 where nobody will be able to touch 

 it. We all of us know, if we have 

 observed closely in the woods, that 

 the supply of wood is getting pretty 

 scarce. We say we have gone back 

 time and time again over the same 

 areas, that was left in the first in- 

 stance, but Dr. Howe's report, shows 

 that instead of going back and cutting 

 timber which has grown up in the 

 interval, we were cutting trees which 

 had been left in the first instance. 

 W^e have gone back and cut smaller 

 timber each time; we cut the pine 

 and w^e cut the spruce, and a little 

 balsam, and then all the spruce and 

 balsam that was readily accessible. 

 We cannot go on doing this. 



When I first came into this coun- 

 try I was told we could go back every 

 fifteen years and get a fresh cut. 

 It cannot be done! 



Now to touch upon one or two 

 other points of the logging industry. 

 Owing to conditions over which we 

 have had very little control it has 

 practically stood still. We have not 

 advanced in the same proportion 

 that different processes have advanc- 

 ed in the mills or other industries. 

 We are still logging just about the 

 way we logged when we first went in 

 to this country around 1855 or 1860. 

 Provisions are hauled into the woods 

 in the same w^ay. The camps are 

 not built in the same way because 

 instead of having a big fireplace and 

 a hole in the roof they have stoves, 

 but that is the only change which I 

 have been able to see. The cullers 

 do not live with the jobbers; they 

 have little shacks of their own where 

 they are more comfortable, but speak- 

 ing generally, we have not changed a 

 bit. We drive a river and build our 

 dams in the same way. We build 

 our tote roads and other roads in 

 the same way, and we still operate 



