NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 147 



and Newfoundland, has confirmed a belief long held, that it does not pay 

 pulp mills. to use too small lumber but only that of medium size. The average 

 diameter I would set down at 9 inches in the middle as the* most suitable to 

 which no exception should be taken on the ground that the whole tree is 

 used down to five or six inches at the small end. In Norway and Sweden 

 where the forest laws are stricter and better maintained than in this country, 

 the establishment of pulp and paper mills of every class has been fostered 

 and encouraged, for their operation has proved of great benefit to the State. 



Industries, such as pulp and paper making and lumber sawing, cannot 

 become permanent in a country unless due regard is paid to the source of 

 raw material upon which their existence depends, namely, the forest. It is 

 well knowa that forest lands near our saw mills do not now yield as large 

 sized logs as formerly, or in other words, they have been depleted and a 

 second growth has arisen consisting of smaller trees and what I will call for 

 want of a better term "weeds." By weeds I mean the broad-leafed trees in 

 contradistinction to the conifers or the pine family. This so called "second 

 growth" is said not to yield such good lumber as the growth immediately 

 preceding it, and I believe this to be true, for the simple reason that no 

 attempt is made by the owner of these lands to give a chance for the best 

 trees to grow by freeing the forest from weeds. Again, the growth is fre- 

 quently so thick, that unless thinning is resorted to, it is impossible to obtain 

 saw logs under a very long period of years. Until in fact the stronger sur- 

 vive their weaker brethern. To allow nature to go on unaided in this 

 fashion in demonstrating that well known law "the survival of the fittest"- 

 is, to say the least, impolitic, and the only remedy is to allow the process of 

 thinning to take place judiciously, under, if found necessary or expedient, 

 Government supervision, so that the forests may ultimately become "a boon 

 and a blessing to mankind." Now the depletion of such lauds of saw logs 

 and subsequent permission for the growth of weeds hns not been the work 

 of the pulp or paper maker, and as what is obtained in the process of thin- 

 king is unsuitable in point of size for sawing on account of the waste which 

 this" operation entails, is it unreasonable to request that that lumber be 

 handed over to the pulp and paper maker for conversion into useful pro- 

 clucts ? Mr. E. Hutchinson of the Miramichi, than whom there is no abler 

 lumberman or closer observer of all departments of his business in the Prov- 

 ince, informs me that from a Jong series of observations he has concluded 

 that it takes about 130 years to grow a saw log of the 18 by 10 limit and 

 that 70 years is the period of growth of a medium sized spruce tree, under, 

 I presume, the conditions of growth which at present prevail m the Mira- 



