30 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



the consumption of wood follows an increasing progression. This increase is due, 

 in great part, to the very rapid development of railroads, of telegraph and tele- 

 phone lines, and above all to the devouring industry of the manufacture of pulp. 



A letter which I have just received from France declares that it "is very cer- 

 tain that, especially owing to the needs of paper pulp, on the whole of North 

 America more wood is cut than nature produces." At this rate, if it continues 

 without being at least checked, the total ruin of your one and a quarter billion 

 acres of forest will be a matter of at the most a century, perhaps of a half 

 century. So much for the United States. 



The official figures which we have for the Province of Quebec do not permit us 

 to say that the same state of things exists with us. Nevertheless it is extremely 

 probable, that all proportions being kept, we use as much wood as our neighbors, it 

 being granted first that the use of oil for domestic heating is virtually unknown 

 in our territory. Everywhere heating is done with wood, private houses are built 

 of wood, fields are fenced with wooden rails. As a result, every inhabitant of Quebec 

 consumes certainly as much wood if not more than his neighbour of the United 

 States, and here, as with our neighbors, this consumption is increasing. 



This is to state the great value for the farmer of the wood lot which he still 

 possesses. Indeed, it is this which will save him great expense, assuring him at the 

 same time work-wood and firewood; and it is this also which will allow him to 

 realize from time to time considerable profits by the sale of the products of a well 

 ordered cutting according as circumstances permit or require. 



Also it is acknowledged by all that, of two farms adjoining and consequently 

 equally fertile in soil, that which still possesses a quantity of wood capable of ful- 

 filling the conditions enumerated above has a greater value than the other. It is, 

 so to speak, more complete, and the proprietor has the advantage of having at his 

 disposition, on his own property everything which is necessary for him. And let 

 no one say that these uncleared acres of land would yield more revenue if they 

 were put under cultivation. That is possible in some particular cases. But in 

 practice and for the reasons already given, the farmer will always prefer, and reason- 

 ably, a property containing some acres of forest to one which no longer has any. 



It is then of prime importance that the farmer possess on his property or in 

 its immediate vicinity a tract of forest from which he may take without too much 

 expense all the work-wood and firewood which he needs. 



Allow me to state, in support of this declaration, what took place in a great 

 number of parishes situated along the right bank of the St. Lawrence from the 

 county of Bellechasse to that of Rimouski. In these ancient parishes, which border 

 the river, almost all the land has been completely cleared. It was excellent, and its 

 proprietors had taken pains to cultivate it throughout its entire extent. At first, 

 in the old times of the first clearings, wood could still be found at a very short dis- 

 tance to the south, and' consequently the question of its supply did not as yet appear 

 disquieting. Later, about 1825, in the region of Kamouraska, at the end of a very 

 dry summer, fire consumed very nearly all the forest which remained, to such an 

 extent that the farmers were able to complete the clearing at very small expense. 

 This was the definite disappearance of the forest. 



Ever since, the farmers of this region have been obliged to buy and to transport 

 at great expense not only the work-wood necessary for new buildings or to repair the 

 old ones, but also, and especially, all their firewood. And to-day they have to find 

 this firewood twelve or fifteen miles away on the sides of the mountains. Those 

 who sell it to them go themselves seven or eight miles further to cut it. The prices, 

 also, have doubled during the last fifteen years. The spruce which formerly sold at 



