102 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



movement in progress there to check the present evil and provide for the 

 preservation of existing forests and a continuous supply of their products, 

 in accordance with well-recognised principles which have long been in opera- 

 tion in such countries as France, and Germany, and Japan. Nevertheless,, 

 extensive as the wood pulp industry is, it must not be held responsible for 

 the rapid exhaustion of our forest resources now in progress, since it appears 

 according to the estimates of the Editor of The Forester that the percentage 

 of wood annually used for the manufacture of wood pulp amounts to only 

 1.9 % of all uses to which forest products are put. 



In Canada, where forestry problems are attracting much attention, Mr. 

 Langelier estimates that pulp- wood constitutes only 2.53 / o of the forest 

 products devoted to all purposes of manufacture, and when this is joined to 

 the enormous supply of available pulp-wood which our forests contain, it is 

 easy to understand why other countries instinctively turn to Canada as the 

 source of future supply- and that we are not likely to be troubled with pre- 

 cisely the same problems which are now causing so much anxiety elsewhere, at 

 least for some time to come. We are also able to appreciate the fact that, leav- 

 ing out of account the uses of timber for other purposes, the depletion of our 

 forests does not lie with the pulp industry, but rather with the development 

 of forest fires, destructive methods in lumbering and other causes, which are 

 now in continual operation and are not completely, if at all, under the con- 

 trol of man. The wind, by uprooting trees where they grow in shallow soil 

 and have poor anchorage, or by twisting them and developing open seams, 

 which offer favorable opportunity for the introduction of decay, is oftentimes 

 a source of great loss. Fires, which originate in a great variety of causes 

 often unknown, are among the most serious of all the dangers which 

 threaten forest growth, and the annual destruction from this cause alone ia 

 enormous. To these agencies must be added those which proceed from the 

 ravages of insects and the action of water and ice, and the sum total of the 

 destruction is one which may well dispose a thoughtful mind to serious re- 

 flections. These agencies, however, are all to be included in what may be 

 termed natural causes, and were the balance of nature not disturbed by the 

 artificial conditions which are introduced at the hand of man, our forests 

 would be likely to suffer no diminution, but, on the other hand, they would 

 probably increase more or less continually. While it is not my present pur- 

 pose to enter into a lengthy discussion of these natural causes of forest des- 

 truction, it may be worth our while to glance briefly at some of the influences 

 operating to the same end as introduced through the agency of man, because 

 they fall within the category of preventable causes, and any discussion which 



