CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 31 



$1.00 to $1.50 per cord has gone up to $2.00 to $3.00; maple has risen from $2.50 to 

 $5.00 or $6.00. 



The entire winter is almost exclusively devoted to the hauling of wood and the 

 farmer has to put all his time into it whether he buys his wood from a dealer or cuts 

 it himself on the wood-lot which he owns, which lot is always situated at a great 

 distance from his residence. It is fair to saythat duringthis season our farmers have 

 very little to do on the farm and that their work is limited in general to the daily care 

 given the domestic animals. Consequently, strictly speaking, this wood hauling 

 is not a waste of time. Nevertheless, I fancy that the inhabitants could occupy 

 themselves more profitably at something else, rather than fatigue their horses and 

 injure their vehicles in these endless journeys, without reckoning that the fodder 

 for their horses must "be choicer, richer and consequently more expensive. 



This state of things is to be found again in several old parishes of other counties 

 of our district, particularly on the south bank of the St. Lawrence. Everywhere 

 there is a quasi-de&rth of wood. The price increases in proportion as the difficulty 

 of procuring it is accentuated, and the people who foresee the future, ask where is 

 this increase to stop and where will their children be able to find that which later 

 will be necessary for their fuel supply. 



Such is the situation of the oldest agricultural centres of the environs of Quebec. 

 Can one say as much of the relatively recent parishes of our region of those, for ex- 

 ample, where the work of clearing has not yet been completed? May one hope that 

 there at least the settlers will be prudent enough to preserve on their properties 

 an extent of forest capable of providing for all their needs present and future? 

 It was so ten years ago. On each lot, or nearly so, a piece of forest was kept suffic- 

 ient to furnish fuel and nearly all the work-wood necessary. 



But at the present time things have been greatly changed. Pulp wood has 

 recently acquired a great value, and materials which formerly were not worth much 

 are now quoted at relatively high prices. The result has been that the farmers, 

 have gone to work to exploit their forest reserves and to sell their products either 

 directly to the manufacturers or to agents who establish a very lucrative business. 



This change in the market has been a veritable godsend for our honest folks. 

 They have been table, in this way, to ameliorate their situation, either by meeting 

 their most pressing debts or by procuring comforts of which they had never even 

 dreamed. Some curds of the regions of La Beauce assure me that certain fathers 

 of families realize from this source up to fifty dollars a week. This income, which 

 lasts all through the winter months, puts them decidedly at their ease, in such 

 fashion that everybody, creditors and debtors, are satisfied. 



In truth there would be nothing to say against this if this commerce could con- 

 tinue indefinitely. One would have simply created a new source of revenue and 

 augmented by so much the national wealth. Unfortunately these new economic 

 conditions, these unhoped for revenues, are only transient because the proprietors, 

 by this intensive exploitation, demand from their forested areas more than they 

 annually produce. For example, on pieces of woodland producing each year, let 

 us say, a hundred cubic feet of wood, one harvests a thousand. Moreover some 

 wooded acres that are exploited in this fashion are rapidly devastated under the 

 axe of the owner. We foresee that soon all will be finished and then the colonist 

 not only will draw no more profit from his wood lot, but he will have to procure for 

 himself somewhere else, and for money, the annual supply of which he stands in 

 need, just like the ancient parishes. 



Listen to what the curd of La Beauce said to me recently : " The half of my 

 parish is well off from an agricultural point of view; the rest is too rocky, cultivation 



