CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 35 



COMPULSORY TIMBER RESERVES ON SETTLERS' LANDS. 



E. G. JOLY DE LOTBINIERE, PAST PRESIDENT CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Since lumbering became an industry 

 in Canada, no period ever offered greater incentives than the present, to the holder 

 of timber lands, to attack and destroy our spruce and balsam forests. 



Before Canada became the great pulp wood producer that she is to-day, 

 our forests were, comparatively speaking, safe, and no one, even the most pessimistic, 

 ever believed in the possibility of their exhaustion. 



They had their natural enemies, fire, disease and insect pest, but lumbering, 

 as carried on thirty years ago, where only mature and adult timber was felled, for 

 conversion into dimension timber, deals and boards, was far from being a menace 

 to the perpetuity of our forest wealth. It was rational exploitation, removing 

 the mature timber to make room for the young growth. 



But all that is now changed. Spruce and balsam which thirty years ago com- 

 manded but a limited market and comparatively low prices, now have the world as 

 a market, and prices undreamt of at the period I allude to. 



The reasons which have led to the rise in the value of spruce are well known. 

 Among many I mention but two, the scarcity and exorbitant price of pine and the 

 unprecedented demand for pulpwood, coupled with the practically irresistible 

 prices consumers are ready to pay for the article. 



It may be of interest in support of what I have just said to draw attention to 

 the rise in the price of pulpwood during the last ten years. The following figures 

 may be open to criticism, but they are on the whole, I think, fairly correct and 

 represent the price of wood at Quebec. 



In 1899, rough wood was worth say, $4.25 per cord, rossed wood, $6.75. Prices 

 between 1899 and 1907 fluctuated considerably for better or worse, but in 1907, 

 rough wood was selling at $6.50 to $7.50 per cord and rossed from $9.00 to $10.00. 



In 1899 the United States imported from Canada, 369,217 cords of pulpwood; 

 in 1906, 738,872 cords, an increase of 369,655 cords. I have not the figures for 

 1907, but I am told that the imports by the United States almost reached 1,000,000 

 cords. If that figure is exaggerated for 1907, it will not be so for 1908. 



With such a demand for pulpwood, and with present prices, it is not to be 

 wondered that the future is forgotten, and that our forests are being sacrificed to 

 the golden present. 



The few remarks I wish to make, have not, however, as their object a requiem 

 on the disappearance of our pine forests, though it might not be out of place to chant 

 one, nor do I wish them to be considered as a valedictory to our spruce wealth. 

 My object is to suggest to this meeting a means by which we may secure, for the 

 Province of Quebec at least, a constant and perpetual supply of timber for our 

 settlers; wood to enable them to build and repair their homes and fuel to heat 

 themselves and their descendants for ever. 



What I am about to suggest may appear to some here to-day, as an invitation 

 to bar the stable door, after the horse is stolen. But such is not the case. It is 

 true that millions of acres in the Province of Quebec are held in freehold, or under 

 patent, with no restriction whatsoever as to the way timber on such areas may be 

 treated, but, gentlemen, there are yet millions of acres of Provincial lands which 

 will ultimately be opened to colonization and my remarks apply to those lands. 



