CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 83 



PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN EASTERN CANADA. 



R. R. BRADLEY, FORESTER TO THE MIRAMICHI LUMBER COMPANY. 



The writer has been requested to prepare a paper on the application of conser- 

 vative methods of lumbering in the forests of Eastern Canada. His experience of 

 Eastern Canadian woodlands, however, has been largely confined to the Miramichi 

 Valley in New Brunswick, and it is only so far as the conditions found there pre- 

 vail over Quebec and the Maritime Provinces that the system outlined here will 

 apply. 



Though it is only in recent years that spruce has come into general use for the 

 manufacture of paper, yet the pulpwood industry has already reached such enor- 

 mous proportions, that it bids fair to soon monopolize the annual cut of spruce logs. 

 In consequence of the value given to low grade material through this development, 

 a very natural and widespread apprehension has arisen, that our spruce forests 

 may be swept away in the sharp and ever-increasing competition for pulpwood. 

 The consequent timber famine and other disastrous results of such a development 

 have been enlarged upon in recent literature throughout the country. Such a result, 

 while possible, is far from being inevitable. It is within the reach of any lumber 

 company to introduce a few changes into its woodswork which will not only postpone 

 a timber famine indefinitely over its holdings, but will insure a more or less ade- 

 quate supply of pulpwood so long as forest fires are avoided. The pulp and paper 

 companies are waking up to this fact, and some of the largest, notably the Inter- 

 national Paper Company, are already taking active steps to develop a policy 

 which will insure a perpetual rotation of wood crops over their holdings in this 

 country. The intensive cultivation to which European forests are subjected can- 

 not be applied to present conditions in Canada; but there are some measures, 

 nevertheless, which may be adopted, and which will accomplish the principal 

 aims of scientific forestry, at very little additional cost over present logging meth- 

 ods. The pulpwood industry in particular is peculiarly adapted to the application 

 of conservative methods of lumbering. The reason for this is two-fold : in the first 

 place owing to the low grade material which has a value in the pulpmill much 

 waste inevitable in logging for deal may be avoided, while small stuff surrounding 

 barrens, or which should be cut out elsewhere for sylivcultural reasons can be 

 utilized. Secondly, the immense cost of pulp and paper plants requires a regular 

 annual supply of pulpwood over a very long term of years, in order to make the 

 original investment pay, and this steady supply can only be insured in perpetuity 

 by careful and systematic forest management. 



An attempt will now be made to outline in a general way, a few of the features 

 that seem indispensable in the conservative management of spruce forests in East- 

 ern Canada, with some discussion of the respective duties of the Government and 

 the lumberman in this connection. 



It may be stated that these suggestions are based on practical experience in 

 connection with the woodswork of the Miramichi Lumber Co., a branch of the Inter- 

 national Paper Company, operating in New Brunswick. 

 t * 



ANNUAL CUT. 



A company that undertakes to handle its timber lands conservatively, must 

 at- once settle what amount of material can be annually removed without detriment 

 to the capital stock, as it may be called, of the forest. 



