Canadian Forcstrij Journal, October, 1917 1353 



The Canadian Forestry Association leaves to the judgment of the Govern- 

 ment and its staff of foresters the detailed plan upon which a reorganization 

 could be based. 



It may be that the Government will consider the taxing of licensed 

 lands at a half-cent an acre, somewhat similar to the method of Ontario, 

 where the tax is double that amount, or of British Columbia where the fire 

 tax is one-and-a-half cents an acre, the British Columbia Government con- 

 tributing dollar for dollar. This would give the province §10,000 which 

 with the $60,000 now spent on scaling, fire protection and administration of 

 fish and game laws would make an annual fund of 3100,000 sufficient to con- 

 struct a orest service second to none in Canada. 



The mere heaping up of a fund of $100,000 would not in itself correct 

 the inadecjuacies of the present forest protective work. From the Parlia- 

 ment Buildings at Fredericton, out to the most distant ranger in the field, 

 there must be a plan of co-ordination and co-operation. This pre-supposes 

 an efficient head-office staff, directed by the Chief of the Forestiy Division. 

 To this officer should be delegated control of practically all the public forest 

 administration, the appointment of a sufficient number of inspectors to get 

 good service from the field employees, the allocation of rangers and the en- 

 forcement of discipline. 



NEW BRUNSWICK'S PROBLEMS SOLVED ELSEWHERE 



The appointment of a Chief Forester, with power and sufficient money 

 to reorganize the protective service, would in itself relieve the government 

 and the people of the need for protracted debate and investigation. Methods 

 of fire protection have become in a general way standardized the world over. 

 Other parts of Canada have built up forest guarding systems that completely 

 outstrip in actual results the methods that preceded them. New Brunswick 

 offers few special difficulties that have not been already surmounted in Que- 

 bec and British Columbia and in many of the states of the American Union. 



Under skilled direction, a reorganized forest department would bring 

 into effect the system of issuing ''permits" for all settlers' land-clearing fires. 

 It would introduce modern aids such as telephone lines, lookout towers, the 

 cutting of trails and roads and other facilities for quick communication. 

 An ounce of prevention is worth at housand pounds of cure in forest fire work, 

 and speed is the essence of prevention. Speed in the detection of fires, in 

 their incipient stage, speed in calling help, speed in reaching the scene of 

 danger. At one time in 1916 sixty fires burned simultaneously on the areas 

 of one of the well-organized Quebec forest protective associations. But 

 every fire of the sixty had been promptly seen by rangers on patrol or from 

 lookout towers, and, by using the telephones, men were rushed to all centres 

 of trouble. Every fire was extinguished. Not one was allowed to grow big 

 and get beyond human control. Prompt detection usually means prompt 

 extinction. But detection requires the afore-mentioned mechanical aids, 

 without which the best human labor is heavily handicapped. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF CENTRALIZED AUTHORITY 



The advantages of combining under a single department of the Govern- 

 ment the work of supervising cutting operations, fire ranging and timber 

 scaling are very clear. The three sets of duties have to do with Govern- 

 ment responsibilities over Crown forests. The ranger would find occupation 

 during the time of fire hazard, roughly from April 15th to October 15th. He 

 could then be transferred to timber scaling or utilized in various field under- 

 takings of the Forest Branch, Control of cutting w^ould, of course, require 

 several technical men, w^hose services could be utilized also for forest surveys, 

 mapping, land classification, construction of fire protection trails, telephones, 

 etc. This would mean continuous year-round employment for the main 

 body of employees, with the prospect of promotion as they became more 

 efficient. In any line of work transient jobs do not attract the best class 

 of men and this is markedly true of forestry employment. 



