FOREST CONDITIONS IN NOVA SCOTIA. 



F. C. WHITMAN, PRESIDENT WESTERN NOVA SCOTIA LUMBERMEN'S 



ASSOCIATION. 



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Forestry is somewhat of a problem in any part of Canada, and in Nova 

 Scotia we have difficulties that are not easily solved. The maritime 

 provinces need encouragement at what seems to be the beginning' of an epoch 

 a leader or several leaders to mark the way and legislative action that 

 will command attention and respect is required; acts that will make for the 

 building up of a public sentiment in a sensible way and in accordance with 

 present conditions, if they are to lead to practical results. 



Let me state as plainly as possible the conditions in Nova Scotia. The 

 cutting of timber and the output of lumber have reached the limit of reason- 

 able production, and the increasing value of lumber has a tendency to draw 

 altogether too heavily upon our diminishing timber reserves. The axe has 

 struck into trees that a few years ago were considered either inaccessible 

 or unmerchantable. In former years lumbering depended almost entirely 

 upon the rivers and streams, but the building of new railways and team 

 logging roads have widened the field of operations and added the menace of 

 fire, which is too well known to require comment. 



How THE LAND is HELD. 



In any forestry proposition the tenure of land has a most important 

 bearing upon the subject. In Nova Scotia the Province long ago lost control 

 of its best land. The ownership of the forest land by the Government was, 

 for a long time, regarded as an embarrassment to the early settlement of 

 the country and titles passed to individual holdings of any desired acreage, 

 with most erratic selections and surveys of such generous irregularity that 

 a grant of 600 acres has been known to cover half as much again. The 

 selection by purchasers was not in the order of good, better, best, but the 

 other way about. First the best was sold, then the poorer, and now the 

 Government is left with 1,500,000 acres of the poorest lots scattered from one 

 end of the Province to the other ; a really unknown quantity as to character 

 or value. For this land the Nova Scotia Government asks 80 cents per acre 

 for a twenty-year lease, subject to a renewal for another twenty years, but 

 they have absolutely no idea what is leased except the acreage of the land 

 itself. Besides the Crown Land acreage of 1,500,000 acres, there are approxi- 

 mately 1,900,000 acres owned by large lumber concerns, and 2,500,000 acres 

 held in lots of 500 acres or less. The difficulty of administering these lands 

 will be appreciated when it is remembered that in a single square mile .there 

 is often a bit of Crown Land, a timber lot, and a settler's holding. From 

 this it will be seen that a forest policy adapted to our present system of 

 tenure is badly ne-eded. 



FIRE PROTECTION. 



Nova Scotia has a goodly list of indigenous trees, and a spontaneity 

 of growth that the axe cannjot possibly keep under. It is only where repeated 



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