Canadian Forcsirij Journal, November, 1917 



1395 



The Story of Canada's Forests 



By The Secretary, 

 Canadian Forestry Association 



From English Conquest to the Great War 

 the Forest has proved a mighty possession 



(Article published also in Confederation Number of Toronto "Mail and Empire") 



THE lumbering industry is prob- 

 ably our most widely distribut- 

 ed manufacturing enterprise. It 

 is also one of the oldest, ranking with 

 the fur trade, and the first attempts 

 at extensive settlement. Since Con- 

 federation, and before it, it has re- 

 tained more than most industries the 

 conservative traditions of independ- 

 ent organization and manufacturing 

 methods. 



In numbers of plants, in wider loca- 

 tion of woods operations and selling 

 agencies, the growth has been, of 

 course, enormous; but as relates to 

 any mechanical or marketing evolu- 

 tion, a blue print of a group of 1917 

 saw mills would differ chiefly in bulk 

 from the manufacturing scheme of 

 1867. There have been refinements, 

 a closing out of the amazing waste 

 at the mill end, a speeding up of 

 processes; but the conservatism of 

 lumbering as compared with the 

 making of shoes, the manufacture of 

 foods, the fabrication of steel, is 

 striking and distinctive. Science and 

 invention and market developments 

 have to a great degree spared lumber- 

 ing from the upsetting changes that 

 have scrapped the machinery and 

 methods of other undertakings in 

 five and ten year periods. 



Lumbering Has Developed Canada 



For all that, Canada owes to the 

 lumbering industry an almost incal- 

 culable share of her national develop- 

 ment. From first to last, the lumber- 

 man has been a great employer — 

 an indispensable source of winter 

 revenue to the early settlers, a magnet 

 for foreign capital, a lavish distributor 

 of wealth extracted from a natural 

 resource. To-day, touching only the 

 bald statistics of the thing, the wood- 



using industries of all classes em- 

 ploy more capital, pay more wages, 

 and employ more men than any other 

 industry except Agriculture. 



It is an interesting fact that what- 

 ever other natural resources we may 

 consider, whatever commercial ac- 

 tivity may be under discussion, the 

 necessity for a wood supply enters 

 at one or another stage. The Can- 

 adian Pacific Railway, for example, 

 needs annuallv 5,000,000 track ties, 

 50,000 telegraph poles and 60,000,000 

 feet of lumber to operate th^ system. 

 . The coal mines of Nova Scotia or 

 Alberta are dependent upon pit props 

 in great abundance, for it takes six 

 lineal feet of wood for each ton of 

 coal produced. Th3 fisheries require 

 wooden boats, boxes and barrels. 

 The farmer is helpless to extract a 

 dollar from the most fertile land with- 

 out the accessories of a wooden home 

 and barn, wooden fence posts and 

 fuel, wagons, implements, churns, and 

 a hundred other products of the tree. 

 Practically no other activity from a 

 daily newspaper to an Arctic whaling 

 fleet can carry on without the aid of 

 manufactured wood. 



In the light of the present enormous 

 development of wood-using olants — 

 attaining nearly $200,000,000 worth 

 of products a year — it is not the least 

 interesting part of the story to find 

 how in the days of our French and 

 English forefathers the public policies 

 towards the mighty forests mani- 

 fested barely a trace of prophetic 

 vision. None apparently reckoned 

 upon a day when more than 5000 

 busy plants lying in a winding chain 

 across the Dominion would look to 

 the forest for their raw materials 

 or when 110,000 men would get their 

 living from the 'fabricating' of trees. 



