Canadian Forestry Journal, April, 1917 



1055 



Government is spending $100,000 on 

 the fire protection and development 

 in Manitoba's forest reserves and 

 they get in return a revenue of $6,- 

 000, a straight outlay for many years 

 to come, an investment for future set- 

 tlers, of $94,000 a year; $151,000 is 

 spent on Saskatchewan and $75,000 

 comes back ; Alberta's protection 

 costs the Dominion Forestry Branch 

 $215,000, and a similar fraction is 

 returned as revenue. • All the reve- 

 nues from all sources connected with 

 the Dominion Government's forest 

 possessions do not come within $200,- 

 000 of the annual outlay for the pre- 

 sent degree of fire protection and for- 

 estry practice. Quite possibly the 

 provinces may secure the administra- 

 tion of their timbered areas, but let 

 there be no misapprehension. These 

 forests, while today giving immense 

 service to your settlers, coal mines, ir- 

 rigation projects, etc., are over great 

 areas like sick and crippled children 

 and must be carried as a liability and 

 nursed back to productiveness. On 

 100,000 square miles across the top of 

 the three provinces, surveyed by the 

 Dominion Forestry Branch only 13 per 

 cent, had timber of eight inches or 

 over. Fifty-five per cent, had very 

 good young growth which, with ex- 

 clusion of fire, will re-establish some- 

 thing like the original values. 



"For long years Germany toiled at 

 building forests on land not as well 

 adapted for forests as the rough lands 

 in Alberta; for years the costs of 

 cultivation ran into dollars per acre, 

 whereas we are not spending three 

 cents per acre. But the more you put 

 into a forest, the more science the 

 more money, the greater the divi- 

 dends. Germany has been extracting 

 from $1.85 to $5.32 per acre in annu- 

 al crops of wood, while at the same 

 time adding greatly to timber capi- 

 tal. France has been getting $2.00 net 

 revenue from state-managed forests. 

 Our prairie provinces have never ex- 

 ceeded more than a few cents per acre 

 for the public treasury. Why the re- 

 markable difference? Why should 

 Sweden draw in $100,000,000 a year 

 from wood crops while with as good 

 forest land and a lower latitude we 

 lamely imitate with one or two per 

 cent.? These nations put the blanket 



on fire waste fifty to a hundred years 

 ago. We are still dreaming of doing 

 likewise. These nations hitched up 

 science with timber perpetuation. We 

 are still in the dream stage on that 

 too. 



75 Per Cent, for Timber 



"Probably more than seventy-five 

 per cent, of the tree covered areas of 

 the prairie provinces will produce one 

 crop and one alone, timber. That is 

 your fortune, not your misfortune. In 

 Ontario quite 60 per cent, of the whole 

 provincial map is fit for forests alone. 

 In Quebec out of 210 million acres, 

 only eight millions are under farm 

 crops. Good business management, 

 which is conservation, demands that 

 those non-agricultural areas be utiliz- 

 ed to their last penny of productive- 

 ness. 



"Gentlemen, this is a ^^ear of thrift. 

 Every prosperous European state 

 prizing trees as the great balance 

 wheel of agriculture and industry 

 looks across to the perpetual bonfire 

 of Canada's north with amazement. 

 We are the only member of the belli- 

 gerent group who since war commenc- 

 ed have had enough surplus life and 

 financial strength to give up in one 

 year 270 precious lives and, nearly 

 every twelve months about six million 

 dollars worth of property. 



Take Personal Interest 



"This is first and foremost a gov- 

 ernment proposition, for we have the 

 lease system almost entirely. Don't 

 look to the lumberman for he is usual- 

 ly as far along in conservation as is 

 public sentiment. Moreover, the 

 lumber firm has usually a life expect- 

 ancy of just so many years. But the 

 state knows no quitting. It never gets 

 bankrupt. It takes on the job for 

 1998 as for 1917. And because forest 

 growing is a long time proposition 

 and needs the providential hand of 

 governments one may feel more satis- 

 fied that in these awakening days as 

 to the duties of governments and the 

 value of foresight, the people of Al- 

 berta will give to these imperative 

 problems of the timber supply that 

 personal concern without which pub- 

 lic policies of conservation both here 



