1260 



Canadian Forestry Journal, Auyust, 1917 



schools, as \v?.s indeed necessary to 

 retain en^ployees. 



What Xext From the Log . 



But lumbering, as has been shown 

 by references to fisheries, mining, ag- 

 riculture and water powers, is but one 

 department of !orest utilization. Man- 

 kind is only at the commencement of 

 new uses for the common log. Indeed 

 in so m.any hundreds of ways is wood 

 in its various forms now employed 

 that mention of a very few will sug- 

 gest the high reward for future re- 

 search and experimentation. 



One might, for example, step into a 

 drug store with an armful of pre- 

 scriptions and have them filled with- 

 out departing from the derivatives of 

 the tree. Barks without number, 

 cjuinine, chinTona, etc., turpentine, bal- 

 sam products, chloroform, camphor, 

 cough syrups, corks — the list would 

 take the bottom out of the pharma- 

 coepia. \Yood pulp is producing not 

 only paper, but waterproof clothing, 

 vests, mattresses, blankets, twine and 

 dish towels. The Germans are using 

 a mixture cf treated hemlock bark 

 and molasses to feed their dogs, and 

 all European countries have long em- 

 ployed wood wool, a fine excelsior, for 

 surgical dressings and mattress filling*. 

 In no war in history have timbers 

 played such a part in defensive con- 

 struction, the durability- of trench and 

 dugout depending wholly upon wood- 

 en props. 



Good Uses for Sawdust 



The despised sawdust is an es- 

 sential ingredient cf blasting pow- 

 ders, porous bricks, metal polishes, 

 floor sweeping compounds, inlaid lin- 

 oleums, and as fuel. Hemlock and 

 oak bark is used for tanning leather. 

 Beechwood shavings are a necessity 

 in vinegar factories. One might pro- 

 ceed after this manner narrating how 

 prolifically the tree and its parts con- 

 tribute not alone to the obvious pur- 

 poses of lumber manufacture, but to 

 hundreds of industrial processes from 

 the making of oatmeal wallpaper to 

 supplying solvents for high explosive 

 fibres. In place of steel and concrete 

 substances pushing the tree from the 

 market our employment of wood is 

 increasing encrmcuslv. Its marvelous 



adaptation to the needs of primitive 

 or civilized life, its ability to take a 

 multiplicity of forms (as in the varied 

 and unrecognizable products of pulp 

 fibres), and the seemingly endless 

 possibilities of wood distillation, and 

 perhaps most important of all, the re- 

 lative abundance of growing timber, 

 its accessibility and cheapness — these 

 have rendered the tree, were we to 

 give the matter a moment's thought, 

 one of the mightiest benefactions of 

 Mother Nature. It is geared to farm 

 and mine and factory and all the 

 wheels of our commerce and finance. 

 Whatever relates to the wood supply, 

 therefore, is the immediate business 

 of every moving item in the machine. 



In India the original Moguls owned 

 all the land, and e\ery subiect of the 

 scores of millions accepted the Mo- 

 gul's say-so and paid tribute. That 

 system with modification, has effect 

 to this day. In Canada, whatever 

 blunders we have made as stewards 

 of the natural resources, our original 

 law-making moguls saw to it that the 

 title to over 90 per cent, of the forest- 

 ed land of the country should remain 

 perpetually in the name of the pco ;'le. 

 Of course, much of the timber grow- 

 ing on that land is licensed and put to 

 sensible use in the lumber and pulp- 

 mill, but the governments have retain- 

 ed the ownership of the grounds on 

 which the timber grows and thereby 

 possess the right to impose whatever 

 regulations the conservation sentiment 

 of the country may demand. That is 

 a great power and should be jealously 

 guarded as it should be moderately 

 exercised. How fortunate Canada is 

 in her pubhc control of the timber 

 land is appreciated perhaps better in 

 the United States, where only about 

 one-fourth of the public forest domain 

 is subject to State or Federal regula- 

 tion. Four-fifths were long ago alien- 

 ated by thoughtless administrations. 



As in the early days the dismayed 

 farmer reviled the forest as a barrier 

 to the plow, that sentiment maintains 

 its strong reactionary grip on this 

 generation. We also kill wood-peck- 

 ers and robins, frogs and snakes, from 

 the same inbred prejudice unenlight- 

 ened by the shy truths of the modern 

 invest ii}"a^ or. 



