568 



Canadian Forestry Journal, June, Jpj6. 



"I personally know large sections grossly over-estimated at 

 forty-five cords to the acre that cannot possibly cut more than four 

 to five cords to the acre on the average. Spruce mixed with pine 

 is sometimes quite deceiving and certain pulp wood areas further 

 south estimated at ten cords to the acre average are to-day actualy 

 cutting less than two cords to the acre." 



when bottoms can be secured this 

 applies to New Brunswick wood as 



well. 



Export wood like timber must in- 

 evitably go higher, due to the scarc- 

 ity of labor in Canada from enlist- 

 m^ent and the demand from war in- 

 dustries which men find more con- 

 genial to home life than the woods 

 employment affords. Added to this 

 is the increased cost of provision, 

 such as hogs live weight at $12.00 

 per hundred, and sugar at $10.00 per 

 hundred wholesale, with no possible 

 outlook than further advances in 

 the provision market all round. 

 Added to this is the increased and 

 ever increasing cost of barking 

 plants, saws, boilers, chain, rubber 

 and leather belting, etc., several of 

 which have gone up from 55 per 

 cent, to over 100 per cent. 



Increased Paper Prices. 

 The final solution does not lie in 

 cheaper Canadian wood or decreas- 

 ed cost of transportation, but in in- 

 creased paper prices during the 

 period of the war, and as month af- 

 ter month passes without positive 

 results, two or three or more years' 

 war is not at all improbable. Can- 

 adian pulpwood operators selling to 

 American mills are not now making 

 any more m<:)ney than heretofore and, 

 are taking immensely larger risks 

 unwarranted l)y the profits obtain- 

 able. Personal friends of mine are 

 operating all the way from the head 

 of the lakes through to St. John and 

 have made less money and some of 

 them more debt within the past 

 eighteen months than at any other 

 ])eriod of their pulpwood operation. 

 Manv of the operators have had to 

 . close' out entirely, and this is bad 

 for the reason that in any business 

 if the stream of consumable goods 



is steady economic life goes on 

 smoothly; if for any reason the 

 stream is interrupted more or less 

 serious consequences always ensue. 

 Operators should go further in in- 

 isting on financial assistance from 

 the buyers, for these mill owners 

 know that there is no greater help 

 to legitimate business than well 

 regulated and easy flowing credit. 

 Forests Unlimited f 



Nor is the quantity for future 

 supply to these American mills up 

 to 19c rate by any means un- 

 limited. Most convincing, indeed, is 

 a map showing the pulp concessions 

 granted in Ontario and Quebec, and 

 if to these could be added those that 

 will likely yet be granted on five 

 good pulp and paper mills sites re- 

 maining in the North the result 

 would be more so. Mill sites to 

 manufacture the wood growing 

 north of the National Transcontin- 

 ental are impossible except at Lac 

 Suel and none on the Nelson on the 

 Hudson Bay line. I might also pos- 

 sibly add one on the upper waters 

 of the St. Maurice above La Tuque. 

 All the other waters are flowing 

 north and will not be intercepted by 

 steel within a qtiarter of a century. 



Looking away to the future be- 

 cause some of our Canadian mills 

 are yet going to have to go as far 

 afield for their wood as the Ameri- 

 can mills, who are rail hauling 600 

 miles, are doing to-day, it would be 

 well here to state frankly that their 

 is no commercial timber for a hun- 

 dred miles south of the waters of 

 Tames Bay on the territory known 

 as the James Bay Basin. 



Only Xear River Banks. 

 Many Canadian and American 

 mill men have the idea that because 

 they are told spruce is growing on 



