Canadian Forestry Journal, December, ipij. 



285 



troyed in one section the lumber- 

 man moved on to another. Then a 

 trip to Europe, just after leaving the 

 university, on which I tramped and 

 bicycled through northern France, 

 southern Germany and part of Aus- 

 tria and Switzerland, opened my 

 €yes to the possibilities of rational 

 utilization of forests. It is of course 

 self-evident to every thinking per- 

 son that no scheme of operations 

 can be bodily transferred from one 

 set of conditions to another entirely 

 dissimilar, but the general underly- 

 ing principles are the same and can 

 be adapted to different circumstan- 

 ces. This point of view was streng- 

 thened by a study of lumbering con- 

 ditions in the Adirondacks and my 

 first trip into the woods in Quebec 

 showed me that Canada was still 

 playing with zest the good old game 

 of killing the goose that lays the 

 golden eggs. 



The Case of Paper Mills. 



If the above is true for the lumber- 

 man, how very much truer it is for 

 the pulp and paper industry, anchor- 

 ed to a locality by a costly plant, 

 designed to run practically forever. 

 The two essentials for the manufac- 

 ture of pulp and paper, cheap wood 

 and abundant water, are insepara- 

 bly bound together and mutually in- 

 ter-dependent, for as the forests are 

 cut off the supply of water dimin- 

 ishes and becomes uncertain. 



When one of these plants is to be 

 built, an expert engineer is consult- 

 ed, elaborate plans are made, expen- 

 sive surveys of rivers and careful 

 guaging of their flow are carried out 

 and every effort is made to see that 

 in the handling of materials from 

 one part of the plant to another 

 there shall be no waste and no lost 

 motion. Every device which will re- 

 duce the cost of conversion and 

 eliminate waste or do away with la- 

 bor is installed, all sorts of precau- 

 tions against fire are taken and the 

 most efficient and economical meth- 

 ods are planned. But the forest, on 

 which the success of the whole en- 



terprise completely depends is treat- 

 ed in the most casual way. Some 

 man who is supposed to know the 

 country is sent out to report on the 

 timber. He is popularly supposed 

 to have some instinct by which he 

 can in a few days say how much 

 timber there is standing on a thous- 

 and square miles, and all honor to 

 the cruiser for the way he tries. 

 Millions have been spent for plants 

 by directors who had absolutely no 

 idea of their timberlands, no maps, 

 no estimate of the amount of timber, 

 worthy of the name, and no idea of 

 how long the available supply would 

 last. Often part of the lands were 

 so inaccessible that it will practical- 

 ly never pay to remove the timber. 



The Idea in Practice. 

 It has always seemed to me un- 

 economical to hold a million acres 

 of timber, one hundred miles from 

 where it can be used, with the crud- 

 est means of transportation only 

 available, when the same supply 

 could, in a relatively short space of 

 time, be provided for by planting 

 one hundred thousand acres situated 

 ten miles from the point of utiliza- 

 tion. With such a supply more ec- 

 onomical methods of cutting, hand- 

 ling and transport can be used and 

 machinery substituted for hand 

 labor. Then, too, the fire risk is 

 materially reduced and closer ulti- 

 zation owing to cheaper transport 

 eliminates a very large amount of 

 waste. 



This point of view I laid before 

 the Vice-President of the Lauren- 

 tide Company about 1907 and secur- 

 ed his consent to the making of some 

 experiments. Having thirty fire- 

 rangers waiting to go into the woods 

 in May, 1908, I obtained through the 

 kindness of Mr. E. J. Zavitz, Fores- 

 ter for Ontario, five thousand, white, 

 Scotch and Jack Pine trees, four 

 years old and these were planted on 

 waste lands on the banks of the St. 

 Maurice River. They have grown 

 well and have reached an average 

 height, for the white pine of five 



