446 



Canadian Forestry Journal, March, jpi6. 



Forestry and the Lumber 

 ^^^^ Industry ^^^^ 



How the British Cokimbia Government Grappled With Problem 

 of Utilizing the Stores of Forest Wealth 



By W. VJ. Van Diiscii, 

 British Columbia Forest Scrz-icc. 



Forestry is a very broad word 

 and has been used to embrace a wide 

 range of activities. I would preface 

 my remarks with a definition of 

 Forestry as I understand it. Fores- 

 try may be defined as the best man- 

 agement of a forest estate keeping 

 in mind both present and future in- 

 terests. 



There are two great classes of 

 forested properties. Protection For- 

 ests and Supply or Timber Forests. 

 The forester must always keep in 

 mind in the management of forests 

 the primary object to be obtained. 

 Protection Forests are very impor- 

 tant in some of the European coun- 

 tries but as the Timber Forest is the 

 important forest of North America, 

 at the present time, as they bring 

 population, wealth, prosperity, I will 

 limit my remarks to the Commercial 

 Forest. 



Forestry was first practised and 

 has come to its highest development 

 in European countries. There, even 

 from the very first, the manager of 

 a Forest Estate had no difficulty in 

 selling his product at a sufficient 

 price to net a profit on his opera- 

 tion. The great demand of the 

 wood-using industries constituted a 

 large and steady demand for the 

 product of the forest. In the same 

 way, the dense population created a 

 steady demand for the product of 



the various wood manufacturing 

 establishments. So, we find in 

 Europe that the Forester on account 

 of the demand for his product has 

 confined his activities to the grow- 

 ing of timber crops. To do this to 

 the best advantage, however, he 

 must keep in close touch with the 

 market which consumes his pro- 

 duct and if he finds his market is 

 undergoing certain changes, he 

 must either devise other ways of 

 marketing his product or change the 

 character of his product to suit the 

 altered market conditions. 



B. C's Fire Protection. 

 Conditions are entirely different in 

 North America. The immense vir- 

 gin forests have been exploited by 

 the lumberman (rightly so to my 

 mind) and the Forester has come on 

 the scene after considerable portion 

 of North America's standing timber 

 has been cut. It became his duty to 

 see that the forest resource was not 

 over cut. was not destroyed by fire 

 and to handle the forests for the 

 benefit of the- people. In North 

 America, of course, forestry is con- 

 fined almost entirelv to state effort. 



Now, I want to tell you about for- 

 estry and the lumber industry in 

 British Columbia. 



The first thing to be done was to 

 adequately protect the forests of 



