156 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



confronting the lumbermen and the user of his products are today in this 

 Province that we are paying dividends out of OUT capital stock which no 

 good business man will do. In the near future our wood must be supplied 

 by growth and reproduction, and the now commonly despised second growth 

 will come to be our source of supply. Referring to second growth, I will 

 here cite an incident : 



Five miles back of the City of Fredericton, in New Maryland, I own a 

 piece of land, 220 acres. Fifty years ago, the land had then lately 

 been burned over, and no large trees of any kind were left ; since that time, 

 the growth of white spruce, fir, and pine, has multiplied so rapidly that this 

 winter I was enabled to cut almost one and one-half thousand feet B. M. to 

 the acre from off the 220 acres, 2 - 3 of the total cut was merchantable, 

 calling a 10-inch Jog a merchantable one, and I expect that in ten years' 

 time, barring fire, to go back and repeat the operation. 



This percentage of increase of second growth will not apply to virgin 

 timber land, as it is well known that it takes over 100 years for virgin lands 

 to grow full-sized trees. 



While here, allow me to congratulate the Province that its second 

 growth lands, in some cases, will soon be good productive lands of pine and 

 spruce. , 



The highly-managed forests of Germany grow, on an average, 

 of about 50 cubic feet of wood per acre annually ; as a matter of fact, the 

 annual growth of our forests, as a whole, under the present conditions of 

 abuse, is probably not more than one-fifth of that, assuming that they 

 are 10 feet, B. M., in one cubic foot, this, therefore, leaves an an- 

 nual growth of 100 feet to the acre. Now, allowing this annual 

 growth, and assuming that out of the 10,000 square miles of licensed 

 ground in this Province, there is only one half of it fit to cut over, there 

 will be an annual accretion of over 300,000,000, as against, say 150,000,000, 

 being taken each year ; and, it must not be forgotten, that the fire fiend is 

 always playing havoc and consuming year by year large areas of good forest 

 lands, and the advent of the G. T. P. across the central portion of our chief 

 spruce-producing lands tends to increase the danger to a very large degree. 

 This is the second time I have referred to this particular railway. It would 

 be unworthy of me, as a citizen of this country, to let this opportunity pass, 

 without giving my opinion in reference to this project. Speaking from no 

 uncertain knowledge of the country through which this railway will traverse, 



