CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 137 



FORESTRY AND LUMBERING IN NORTHERN QUEBEC. 



ELLWOOD WILSON, B.A., B.S., C.E., FORESTER LAURENTIDE PAPER 



COMPANY. 



The Province of Quebec is now at a critical point in her history. The 

 wealth of the country lying north of the St. Lawrence River, consists almost 

 entirely in the forests which cover practically the whole of this area ; from a 

 few miles north of the river to the northern limit of tree growth. The small 

 areas containing minerals in paying quantities need hardly be taken into 

 consideration, and it has yet to be proved that the conditions are sufficiently 

 favourable for agriculture to play a relatively important part. Between the 

 Saguenay and the Ottawa Rivers and from a line averaging fifty miles north 

 of the St. Lawrence to the limit of vegetation, speaking generally, the coun- 

 try is comparatively unfertile, being for the most part light sandy soil with 

 rocky ridges. It therefore behooves the Provincial Government to exercise 

 the utmost care if it is to maintain the present established industries and to 

 insure them (and those to be established), a supply of raw material for the 

 future, to give occupation to the present population and to protect the mag- 

 nificent water powers of this part of the country. 



This territory is covered with forest in various stages of growth. The 

 species of present commercial value, in the order of their utility, are white 

 and black spruce, balsam fir, white pine, red pine, hemlock, jack pine, cedar 

 and larch . From the standpoint of quantity they rank about in the order of 

 balsam, spruce, jack pine, white pine ; the others occuring in relatively small 

 quantities. As a general rule these forests are mixtures of balsam, spruce, 

 white pine and hardwoods, although large areas are often covered with pure 

 stands of black spruce and jack pine. The size of the trees is small compared 

 with those south of the St. Lawrence, the averages being roughly, as fol- 

 lows : balsam, 7.3 inches; white and black spruce, in mixture, 8.25 inches; 

 white pine, 20.65 inches; and black spruce in pure stands, in swamps, 7.7 

 inches. This country was lumbered for white pine about twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago, so that the present stand of pine consists of trees which were 

 either unsound or too small at that time to pay for cutting, and, consequently 

 are now of inferior value. The spruce is healthy, but the balsam is about 

 forty per cent, affected with heart rot; generally the result of injury to the 

 bark, in a number of cases due to bears. Where the balsam fir and spruce 

 occur in mixture the proportion is about one spruce to four balsams; or 22.4 

 per cent. The natural reproduction over the whole area is so good that re- 

 planting is not at all a question of even future importance, unless the price 

 of timber rises to the point where close planting would pay in order to con- 

 centrate operations and so cut down expenses of logging and driving. All 

 over the old burns young trees are coming up, large areas in pure jack pine 

 ptands, other sections in mixed spruce and balsam, and in some sections pure 



