110 



Canadian Forestry Juiir/ial, .1 nhj-Amjust, 1912. 



STUDYING CANADA'S FORESTS. 



]^r()f. Giinnar Anderssoii. of the 

 TJnivcrsity College of Commerce. 

 Stockholm, and Jagmastare A. Holiu- 

 gi'eii, of Oslersund. Sweden, are at 

 present on a vi.sit to Canada, making 

 a special stndy of the forests and 

 ■wood industries of this country. They 

 recently spent a couple of days in 

 Ottawa, looking uj) information par- 

 ticidarly in regjird to the forests un- 

 der Dominion administration, and 

 visiting the wood industries of the 

 Capital and vicinity. On leaving they 

 expected to pay a visit to the pHrty 

 engaged in reconnaissance work in 

 Central Ontario, and after visiting 

 the Pacific Coast, will retiu-ii liome 

 about the end of August. 



EXPORT OF CHRISTMAS TREES. 



Mr. S. S. Bain, uurtei yiiiaii, Montreal, re- 

 cently had a very interestiug letter iu the 

 Montreal Wiiness on the question of the 

 export of Christmas trees from the eastern 

 to\vnshii)s of Quebec. He states that just 

 before Christmas each 3-ear a number of 

 men come over from the Uniteil States and 

 buy np thousands of spruce trees from six 

 to fifteen feet high, to lie useil as Christ- 

 mas trees. For these they give three fourths 

 of a cent to one and a half cents in the 

 ■woods, and the farmer usually gets the job 

 of haiding them to the railway. Mr. Bain 

 i-ontemls that this shows great ignorance 

 on the part of thot-e who s-ell trees from 

 their land for such a trifle. The larger 

 of these trees, he says, if fit for fence posts, 

 are worth from eight to ten cents each ; 

 and with the growing scarcity of timber 

 they would soon be worth much more. As 

 showing what might be done he I'efers to 

 Ms experiences on a forest plantation in 

 Britain. There, land unsnited for agricul- 

 ture was planted with ti'ees from three to 

 four feet apart each \\&\. When large 

 enough for fence posts the first thinning 

 took place, the trees to be cut not being 

 taken out hai)hazard l)y any Tom, Dick or 

 Harry, but marked by a forester. The next 

 thinning took place when the largest part 

 of the tree would make a light railway tie. 

 The next section was sold for pit props and 

 the remainder was large enough for a fence 

 post. These two thinnings ]-epaid the cost 

 of the original investment, and the rest of 

 the cioj) was left to mature to be cut into 



tindier. Some people argue that this cannot 

 be done in Canada where the land belongs 

 to a farmer, but Mr. Bain contends that 

 the Dominion Government, exercising its 

 l)Ower of eminent domain, could designate 

 what areas were unfit for any other crop 

 than trees and comjiel the owner to always 

 keep such lands under a tree crop. If the 

 farmer when felling Christmas trees would 

 have them cut on the j)lan of. thinning out 

 so that the remaining trees would have a 

 better chance to develop there would be no 

 ol)jection ; but as it is the buyer goes in 

 and slaughters everything without regard to 

 the future crop. He holds that something 

 must be soon done because of the excessive 

 cutting now going on. From the County 

 of Brome last December there were shipped 

 sixty seven carloads containing from l,l!00 

 to 1,500 Christmas trees each, and these 

 wei-e not culls, but the most perfect .sym- 

 metrical trees, leaving nothing but crook- 

 ed and deformed trees on the land. Mr. 

 Bain is very anxious that government action 

 should l)e taken to stoji this loss and show 

 the farmers what an immense revenue they 

 are losing by denuding the hilltops and hill- 

 sides of the eastern townships of the mag- 

 nificent forests that once crowne<l them 

 At the Canadian Forestry Convention in 

 Ottawa in February, 1912, this sulijeet of 

 the export of Christmas trees from the east- 

 ern townships was brought up liy several 

 delegates and presented by them to the reso- 

 lutions comnuttee. A general resolution 

 was jiassed on the subject as follows: — 



Eesolved, that this Association deprecates 

 the i>ractice of exjiorting in large cjuanti- 

 ties Christmas trees of spruce and balsam 

 and recommends legislation to prevent such 

 jiractice. 



A more sweeping resolution was not pass- 

 ed, because as Mr. Bain pointed out, there 

 would be no great objection to the prac- 

 tice if the farmers got a sufficient price 

 for their trees, and also if the trees were 

 taken on a systematic thinning plan which 

 would allow the development into useful 

 tindier of those left behind. 



Journals ¥7anted. 



in order to eomplete his file, a 

 mendier of the Association requires 

 the second and third issues of Vol- 

 ume 4 (June and October. 1908) of 

 the Canadian Forestry Journal. 

 Thirty eents eaeh will be paid for 

 each copy of these issues sent to the 

 Secretary. Canadian Building. Ot- 

 tawa. 



