154 



Canadian Forestry Journal, August, IQ15. 



Are European Methods Right For 



Canada's Forests? 



What Can and Cannot be Adapted From Foreign Systems of 



Woodland Management. 



By R. 0. Sweezy. 



Apparently there is no argument; 

 however logical in scientific reason- 

 ing and aesthetic in its teachings, 

 that can introduce European fores- 

 try methods into Canadian forests 

 until, devoid of technical polish and 

 romantic fervour, commercial profits 

 commensurate with the necessary 

 outlay and effort can be derived 

 therefrom. Since European forestry 

 methods, so called, have been fairly 

 well explained and expounded to 

 those interested in the welfare of 

 Canadian timber lands it is unneces- 

 sary to further amplify them here. 

 The question is, are those methods 

 applicable to Canadian forestry con- 

 ditions? the reference here being 

 particularly to Eastern Canada. 



Large timber limit owners and 

 manufacturers of forest products in 

 Canada rightly repudiate the French 

 and German scientific methods as 

 out of the question in our Canadian 

 forests. It is not stubbornness on 

 their part, nor yet lack of apprecia- 

 tion of what progressiveness and 

 scientific effort can accomplish. It 

 is purely a commercial consideration 

 of dollars and cents. 



Were Canada as thickly populated 

 as Europe, her forests as accessible 

 as those of Germany and France, 

 labor as cheap, with the demand for 

 wood as great and the price as high, 

 then Canadian lumbermen and limit 

 owners would be in a position to 

 promptly adopt and improve upon 

 every technical and practical meth- 

 od known to the world. 



Labor and Transport. 



To maintain the scientific culture 

 of the forest as practiced in Europe 

 requires, among other essentials, 

 cheap labor and an intricate net- 

 work of transportation systems, 

 penetrating and surrounding the 

 cultivated area. If Canada had such 

 facilities and added to them — as in 

 Europe — a profitable local demand 

 for every twig that is pruned from 

 the forest, then indeed conditions 

 would be favorable for applying as 

 much fostering care and mainten- 

 ance as demanded by European 

 scientific methods. But where have 

 we such conditions in Canada? In 

 the older inhabited parts of the coun- 

 try no doubt a modification of those 

 methods may be applied on a modest 

 scale, especially where ulterior bene- 

 fits might be derived. Nowhere, 

 however, does there appear to be a 

 "commercial proposition" for the 

 application of the principle of Euro- 

 pean forestry at the present time, 

 except, of course, where the principle 

 may be employed to reforest areas 

 such as the Trent valley or on cer- 

 tain parts of the Prairie Provinces 

 where the effort, not offering any 

 inducement to private enterprise, 

 becomes the ob-vious duty of the 

 state. 



But if the ultra practical Cana- 

 dian lumberman rightly repudiates 

 the European methods, what modi- 

 fications, if any, should be profitably 

 applied here? There may be vary- 

 ing opinions upon this point but we- 



