Forest Devastation 29 



Saskatchewan and Alberta, or the fir forests of British 

 Columbia. There are no hardwood stretches in these 

 places to check a fire, and a repetition of the same careless- 

 ness will produce the same results. 



To show how small is the destructive work of man com- 

 pared with that of fire, we quote the following from a 

 bulletin issued by the Director of Forestry. 



"According to the Dominion Census of 1901 there were 

 98,804 square miles of occupied land in Canada at that date. 

 This has been since increased to approximately 110,000 square 

 miles. Of this total, 18,000 square miles is located in the prairie, 

 thus leaving 92,000 square miles of land within the forested 

 area, which have been cleared for settlement. Although 

 25,000 square miles of this is reported as still wooded, in order 

 to be conservative we shall not consider it as an addition to the 

 forested area. 



"The total area cut over by lumbermen in the past, outside 

 of the area cleared for settlement, can only be approximated. 

 If it is granted that the lumbermen have cut over 100,000 

 square miles of land, exclusive of lands occupied for agriculture 

 or settlement, it would mean a total cut in the past 300 years 

 of 192,000,000,000 board feet, at the low yield of 3000 board 

 feet per acre. This, in addition to the large quantity which 

 has been cut from the 92,000 square miles of cleared farming 

 lands, is certainly as much lumber as has been produced in 

 Canada. Therefore, it may be assumed that lumbermen in 

 Canada have not actually cut more than 100,000 square miles 

 of green timber, if indeed they have cut as much, when allow- 

 ance is made for the area covered by fires which have caused 

 their operations to be scattered. 



"The original timbered area, omitting semi-treeless land, 

 was approximately 1,900,000 square miles. Of this we have 



