Canadian Fairslrij Journal, Augusl, I HI] 



127)1 



Conscripting Forests for Peace or War 



What Canada has done in utiHzing her timbei' 

 endowment — New duties after the War. 



By Hobson Black 

 Secreietry, Canadian Forcsliij Association. 



In these piping limes of war the 

 regiment is just one of a hundred 

 fighting units. Every beUigerent 

 country, to a greater or less degree, 

 "ca'ls up" its, raih'oads, factories, 

 banks, farms, forests and mines and 

 assigns them to the battlefield. In- 

 dividuals and names mean less and 

 less as the war grows old; the plan 

 is everything. 



This total concentration upon "the 

 idea of science" in the conduct of the 

 war is certain to extend to our nation- 

 al housekeeping when peace shall have 

 returned. If the State can marshal 

 armies and set them to work with 

 such exactness and economy, why 

 should not these same ends be secur- 

 ed in the peace-time warfare of field 

 and forest, waterway and mine? That, 

 at all events is the line of public think- 



ing. Unless Canada is to be entirely 

 crushed by the debts of war, the man- 

 ner of operating the nation's natural 

 resources in the interests of the great- 

 est number of people must take its 

 bearings by "the idea of science." 



When Trees Were Weeds 



It is in the history of all new coun- 

 tries that the key of conservation is 

 turned on an empty stable. As no 

 new land starts business on a blue 

 print of its future, preferring to work 

 an elaborate cure rather than a s'm- 

 ple preventive, it is not surprising 

 that Canada during a hundred years 

 should have victimized her forest re- 

 sources by neglect and maltreatment 

 There were days when French and 

 English settlers shook their fists at 

 every pine tree cluttering thrir agri- 



BRINGING OUT BRITISH COLUMBIA "BIG STUFF." 



