1936 



Canadian Forestry Journal, November, 1918 



Time and lime again the pulpwood 

 shipments to the United States have 

 been sold as all spruce when there 

 must have been a very large percent- 



age of balsam. The Laurentide is 

 using up to 75 per cent, balsam, and 

 I believe we make as good paper as 

 anybody. 



The Prop of Our Empire 



British Government Stripping 5000 Acres of 

 Timber Each Month for Emergency Uses 



London, England, Oct. 15. — ^The 

 humble bundle of firewood that 

 in pre-war days used to cost one 

 halfpenny has to-day more than 

 doubled into price, for the present 

 penny bundle of wood is little more 

 than half the size of the old half- 

 penny bundle. Fine timber used 

 in the making of furniture is now 

 costing in some cases four or five 

 times as much as in the early days 

 of 1914. But although these big 

 and sudden increases in price are 

 due to the war, it should be borne in 

 mind that for the past twenty years 

 timber has been steadily rising in 

 value, owing to the ever-increasing 

 demand and the decreasing supplies. 

 The world is cutting down its forests 

 faster than the forests are growing, 

 and unless something is done to 

 counteract the destruction that is 

 going on, there will, in the not far 

 distant future, be a world-wide tim- 

 ber famine. 



Nine-tenths of the timber hitherto 

 used by us has been imported. 

 Before the war we were annually 

 importing on an average over 10,000,- 

 000 tons "(or loads) of timber that cost 

 us $27,500,000. In 1915 we imported 

 just three-quarters of this quantitv, 

 buL it cost us $32,700,000; and in 1916 

 the 6,319,000 loads we imported had 

 gone up in price to $40,000,000, 

 so in two years the load had more than 

 doubled in value, having leapt from 

 $3 to $7. Incidentally, wood pulp, 

 from which is manufactured, went 

 from, roughly, $5 to nearly $12 a ton, 

 which is one reason this magazine 

 is twice the pre-war price. 



Russia supplied us with a little 



more than half our total wood im- 

 ports, and Sweden was our second 

 largest source of supply, with a total 

 of 1,759,000 loads, France, Canada, 

 the United States, Norway, Portugal, 

 Germany, Spain, all, in the order 

 named, contributed to our markets 

 until the German submarine .cam- 

 paign compelled the British Gover- 

 ment to forbid the importation of 

 wood and concentrate ships upon 

 bringing us food. 



Consequently with the wood mar- 

 kets of the world closed to us, we 

 were thrown back upon our own 

 resources, which consisted of 3,000,- 

 000 acres of forests and woods. 

 These figures will be better under- 

 stood when it is known that no 

 other country in Europe is so badly 

 off for forests as is the United King- 

 dom, for whereas we have only four 

 acres in a hundred under wood, 

 Sweden has forty-seven, Russia has 

 thirty-seven, and Germany twenty- 

 five. 



Still, we had to do the best we 

 could with the woods at our disposal 

 so to this end the Home-grown Tim- 

 ber Committee was formed to deal 

 with the matter, and the way the 

 members of that committee have 

 surmounted the manifold difTiculties 

 that confronted them is little short 

 of marvellous. When the committee 

 first met, the whole business was in a 

 terrible tangle. Their work was to 

 supply out of British forests the wood 

 necessary for the national needs. 

 But there was no labour and no 

 machinery, and the home markets 

 were absolutely unorganized. Mach- 

 inery was obtained after a great deal 

 of trouble, and Belgian labourers were 



