124 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



their own business. In this country we could more advantageously cut them down 

 very much earlier. But this has very little to do with the point at issue. I said 

 we could cut over enough land to supply fuel for all Canada, and go on doing so 

 continuously, that is with the area cut each year being compensated by the growth 

 of the rest of the forest, so that the supply would be practically perpetual. And 

 I still hold to that opinion, because there was a very large margin to come and 

 go upon in my estimate. 



Mr. KNECHTEL. And you would have to be certain that reproduction went 

 on too. 



Dr. BELL. Yes. And a lot has been said about re-planting. I would venture 

 to say that this re-planting could be only very microscopic compared with the 

 re-planting that nature itself does. As compared with the reproductive work of 

 nature, we shall never accomplish much by re-planting. 



Mr. KNECHTEL. In Germany they worked the problem out and concluded 

 that they would have to accomplish the thing by planting. We hear a great deal 

 about our conditions being so different from those which obtain in Europe, that 

 we have to do things entirely different from the European way, but I think that 

 Forestry history will repeat itself here just as it has done in European countries, 

 if we follow the same lines that they did. Of course, we can shorten matters by 

 taking their conclusions as they have reached them from years and years of ex- 

 perience, and acting upon those conclusions. But if we go on figuring the problem 

 from the very beginning, as some of us are desirous of doing, instead of accepting 

 the conclusions of European experience, we shall probably reach the same state 

 of affairs that they have reached, but it will take a very much longer time, and 

 finally we shall have to do the very same things that they are doing now. 



Mr. A. H. D. Ross. I would like to show the members of this Association the 

 result of an experiment carried out last summer in Northern Western Manitoba. 

 By looking at this chart you will see that the red curve represents the volume of 

 white spruce grown on fairly high land. Our diagram shows that at a diameter 

 of twelve inches, breast high, a white spruce tree has a volume of eighty cubic feet, 

 and so on, while after it reaches twelve inches in diameter, the volume grows very 

 rapidly. I have not a curve here showing the relationship between the volume 

 of spruce and its age; unfortunately I did not bring that one with me, or it would 

 have answered the question satisfactorily. I can assure you, however, that after 

 the tree attains a certain age, say, thirty or thirty-five years the volume then in- 

 creases very rapidly. To add ten cubic feet after that age requires only a very 

 thin ring over the whole surface, so that we cannot judge by the width of the rings 

 the rate at which the trees are growing. The only way to get reliable information 

 about their rate of growth is to carefully measure their volumes. (Applause). 



