1940 Canadian Forestry Journal, November, 1918 



The Case for Nova Scotia's Forests 



Bv RoBSON Black 



Secretarij Canadian Forestry Association 



A Province With Rising Wood Costs an^ 

 Declining Wood Supply— The Remedy! 



XOTE: — This arlicle has been issued as an alliarlirr illnslraled brochure for free dislribuii n 

 throughout Nova Scotia. 



Nova Scotia is essentially a forest province. By that, one does not under- 

 rate other lines of activity or suggest that the forests must flourish at the 

 expense of other provincial interests. The facts are precisely to the contrary. 

 A productive forest trespasses upon no soil desired by the farmer. It has no 

 quarrel with the apple grower, the fisherman, the miner, the shipbuilder, 

 manufacturer, or merchant. To each it supplies essential raw materials. 

 To each its unfailing revenues give stability and confidence. When every 

 citizen shares in the profits of maintenance, when every citizen pays dearly 

 for neglect, the assertion is well justified that forest protection and the cause 

 of Forestry are Community Business. 



Facts That Cannot Be Glossed Over. 

 Apple barrels have increased in cost by 100 per cent, in the Annapolis 

 Valley during the past four years. Wood materials for fishing boats, boxes, 

 barrels, sheds and houses record a painful advance in price. Pit props for 

 the coal mines are scarcer and much dearer. Western Nova Scotia lumber 

 mills that were able to export 25 per cent, of a cargo in 12" lumber, fifteen 

 years ago, were forced to reduce the proportion of bigger lumber to 10 per 

 cent, during the succeeding ten years and today are shipping out cargoes in 

 which the larger timbers are inconspicuous. The significance of these facts 

 to Nova Scotia's export trade is at once obvious. The scarcity of larger tim- 

 ber and its increasing inaccessibility in certain sections places a handicap upon 

 the ability of provincial lumbermen to sell to the United States, West Indies, 

 South America or the United Kingdom. The class of timber in greatest 

 demand cannot now be delivered as formerly. This obviously ties the hands 

 of the exporter. Industrial re-organization cannot remedy it, for the root of 

 the trouble is in the Nova Scotia forest. The big timber simply is not there 

 in quantities or locations to justify operating. The whirling saws of Western 

 Nova Scotia mills do not in themselves create wealth. They give new utility 

 and market value to the raw materials of the forest. Where the forest fails 

 to support the mill, the mill is as useless as a disconnected turbine. 



Nova Scotia's Future Depends On This 



Export trade in forest, farm and sea products is the main hope of large 

 provincial development. It is the magnet to new population, the trump 

 card in the vastly keener competition of post-bellum days when Nova Scotia 

 must either send superior goods, produced at low cost, to foreign shores or 

 find foreign-made goods battling home products out of its home market. 



Wood products in themselves form a chief item of present export, cap- 

 able of vast development. Forest depletion not only negatives the growth 

 of Nova Scotia lumber and pulp mills, but must pull down to mediocrity 

 the wooden ship building industry and its expectation of home cargoes. It 

 does more than that. The ability of the apple grower to sell abroad pro- 

 fitably depends upon his ability to produce cheaply. If he cannot obtain 

 cooperage material or can obtain it only at high cost, his importance as an 

 exporter is diminished to that degree. So with the fisherman. 



The present condition of the Nova Scotia forests, taken as a whole, in- 



