98 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



soon become the controller of the wood markets of the world, and of the paper 

 trade in special. 



But even so, while it woufd be poor political economy and foolish to let the 

 destructive policy continue, and to allow, without adequate compensation, the 

 decimation of this rich resource, and, while it would be a pity if in the cutting of 

 the spruce, as is likely to be the case under present methods, a large amount of 

 valuable material of the wealth of the nation were wasted, it would not be as 

 great a disaster as some try to make us believe, for there is really no need for pulp- 

 wood in the world. The world has existed, and quite comfortably, before paper 

 was made from wood, and it certainly can again. A number of other vegetable 

 fibres will answer; it is only a question of cost that has brought wood so prom- 

 inently into use for paper. To be sure, a large amount of unnecessary and unde- 

 sirable printing would perhaps be eradicated by the increase in the cost of paper 

 to the advantage of the world. 



Yet, while all this mismanagement of a resource that would be kept producing 

 forever must be a detriment to the material welfare of the country, it could be 

 endured, and means for alleviating the evil can be devised, and moreover the re- 

 storation of mismanaged forests is by no means an impossible thing as Germany 

 has proved, provided the soil is left. 



But there is a danger, a damage, a disaster which lurks, hardly realized, in 

 the reckless treatment of your woodlands, infinitely more serious, the loss of the 

 soil. Denude your soil of its protective forest cover by axe and repeated fires, 

 expose it to the wasting of the waters, and it will lose its stability and change its 

 location it actually runs away. 



In general terms the influence of forest cover on stability of soil and equableness 

 of waterflow is well known and understood, but it is perhaps not fully realized that 

 the importance of this influence is variable with topography, character of rock and 

 climate. While there are, for instance, in the United States large areas which 

 suffer but little from the erosion of bared slopes, your country is particularly un- 

 favourably situated from this point of view, for a large part, the larger part of your 

 eastern provinces at least, is country composed of hard Laurentian and Huronian 

 rock which makes soil only slowly and is for the most part only thinly overlaid 

 with soil. 



Destroy the protective forest cover of this rocky country and soon the thin 

 soil is washed off and the naked rock remains, a stone desert. 



That this is not mere theory, but a result experienced over and over again in 

 all parts of the world, even on this continent, and in your own countiy, can be 

 attested by many here. 



