Canadian Forestry Journal, April, 1917 



1067 



widest access to the exploitation of 

 the timber resources for the produc- 

 tion of both lumber and wood pulp. 



Burning our Storehouse. 



Looking to the future then we see 

 the possibihty of the development of 

 a great European competitor. That 

 development may not be rapid but 

 Canada's pulp wood resources are 

 not inexhaustible. To insure our 

 supply of raw material demands a 

 policy which will protect standing 

 timber against the ravages of such 

 fires as have been experienced in 



Northern Ontario and the replanting 

 of the vast areas which have been 

 cut or burned oyer. These lands 

 have small value from an agricultural 

 standpoint and to use them to con- 

 serve our pulp wood supply would 

 represent but little in the way of 

 overhead. Some of the private com- 

 panies are following a far-sighted 

 policy in this connection in reforest- 

 ing cut-over areas but to insure the 

 future of our most important national 

 industries demands a broad practical 

 program on the part of provincial 

 and Dominion governments. 



How Forest Reserves Help the Settler 



Saw Mills Located in Colonized Districts Supply Lumber at 

 Minimum Cost. — A Successful Experiment. 



The objects for which the Dominion 

 forest reserves of the West are es- 

 tablished are mainly to preserve the 

 timber and make it available for the 

 use of the people in the vicinity of the 

 reserves, and for the development of 

 the country generally. One of the 

 most important uses of the reserves 

 is to supply building material of all 

 kinds for the settlers, logs, rails, poles, 

 posts, etc., and in order to provide 

 that the settlers may get the timber as 

 directly as possible from the reserves 

 a system of timber permits is pro- 

 vided by which a homesteader may 

 get a permit for a considerable al- 

 lowance of timber free of dues, and 

 may thereafter obtain permits from 

 year to year for such timber as he 

 may require on payment of dues at a 

 moderate rate. 



Service to the Settler 



The quantity of timber granted 

 under permit amounts already to a 

 considerable quantity each year, be- 

 ing in 1915 about 5,000,000 feet board 

 measure of saw timber; 1,245,000 

 lineal feet of building logs; 393,000 

 fence posts; 598,000 fence rails. The 



settler can of course cut the timber 

 required in the form of posts, rails or 

 cordwood with the axe or with the 

 small saw but when it comes to ob- 

 taining lumber he must either buy 

 the lumber from one of the sawmills 

 or he must take the logs cut by him 

 under permit on the reserve to a saw^- 

 mill and have the lumber sawn out. 

 If he buys the lumber from the saw- 

 mill he must pay whatever the price 

 is in the open market. If he takes his 

 logs to the mill to be sawn he has to 

 pay whatever the millman wishes to 

 charge for the work of cutting the 

 logs into lumber. 



Reducing the Middle Profit 



In order to assist the settler a stage 

 further beyond the mere granting of 

 the permit for the cutting of sawlogs 

 the Department of the Interior has 

 been experimenting in the last year 

 or two with a policy of granting own- 

 ers of mills the right to locate within 

 a forest reserve and saw timber for 

 settlers on the payment of a fee for 

 the location of the mill and agreeing 

 to saw up the logs at a reasonable 

 rate. The method followed to ensure 



