1242 



Canadian Forestry Journal, August, 1917 



plies even more than the people of 

 1917. For every tree maturing in 

 1930 or 1950 there will be an im- 

 portant use and an eager market. 

 The province that possesses a near- 

 at-hand wood supply will outstrip 

 the province in which neither care 

 nor foresight has been exercised in 

 its growing forests. 



The forests of Alberta are prim- 

 arily for Alberta's use. So with 

 Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Each 

 province gets all the dividends of con- 

 servation, whether that conservation is 

 applied and paid for by a provincial 

 or a Dominion Government. 



The Real Question 

 To all informed students of the 

 situation the question to be settled 

 is not who shall administer the for- 

 ests of the three prairie provinces, 



but whether any authority, save the 

 Dominion Government, would be 

 willing to put up the money to do the 

 job at all. IL is not a matter of selling 

 timber and securing nice profits for 

 the public treasury but of growing 

 the timber of overtaking the gross 

 damage of repeated forest fires. Not 

 of cashing in on some of the "in- 

 exhaustible" resources but of stop- 

 ping the exhaustion. Not of ex- 

 tracting financial fillips for the pres- 

 ent, but of laying a broad foundation 

 for the necessities of the future. This 

 is something of what is meant by 

 "control of the forest resources of 

 the prairie provinces." And it is at 

 the same time substantially opposed 

 to what the platform exponents of 

 'provincial ownership' sometimes 

 would wish their constituents to un- 

 derstand. 



Who Owns the Young Growth? 



"Does a limit 1 older own the voung 

 growth?" 



A most interesting decision on this 

 point was rendered recently in the 

 courts of Quebec by Judge L. J. A. 

 Desy, of the Superior Court, Three 

 Rivers district Judge Desy de- 

 cided that a licensee could sue on 

 fire damage caused not only to his 

 timber of legal size but to what had 

 not yet attained the dimensions on 

 which his cutting rights were based. 



The dispute arose through a suit 

 instituted by a licensee against a 

 railroad contractor who, in the face 

 of warnings, had set fire to a pi'e of 

 old ties and caused a serious burn in 

 adjoining timber and young growth, 

 but particularly to the latter. The 

 defendant's lawyer entered the in- 

 genious plea that as the licensee was 

 permitted by the Government to cut 

 only what was of a given diameter, 

 that therefore the Government was 

 the owner of what fel. under that 

 diameter. Licenses being renewed 

 year by year, argued the defendant, 

 .t was preposterous to assert that a 

 license holder had more than a year's 

 ^utting rights or could assert that 



certain trees would become his prop- 

 erty many years hence w^hen they 

 had reached maturity. 



Judge Desy. however, looked upon 

 the licensee as the proprietor of the 



young growth for the reason that his 

 rights could in future increment not 

 well be cancelled unless by violation 

 of the Government regulations. The 

 defendant was obliged to settle the 

 claim, which was in the neighborhood 

 of four thousand dollars. 



THE CpVER PICTURE 



The cover picture this month shows 

 Mount Assiniboine, British Columbia. 

 It was taken by Mr. Herbert O. 

 Frind, a well-known member of the 

 Alpine Club of Canada. The July 

 cover picture was also from one of 

 Mr. Frind 's photographs. 



THE CANADA LUMBERMAN 



The annual number of the Canada 

 Lumberman is a particularly hand- 

 some and elaborate production, con- 

 taining numbers of special articles 

 of decided interest and value. Editor 

 Horace Boultbee is to be congratu- 

 lated upon the scope and timeliness 

 of the contents. 



