866 



Canadian Forestry Journal, December, ipi6 



Paper Prices and Forest Fires 



Independent of other causes operat- 

 ing to increase the price of paper to Ca- 

 nadian publishers, the constant de- 

 struction of spruce and balsam forests 

 by preventible fires has played a serious 

 role. Without question, there is 

 abundance of woods to meet all de- 

 mands of paper mills, but abundance 

 and accessibility are frequently two 

 very different things. Transporta- 

 tion distance between the woods and 

 the mills is a factor of first importance, 

 as not a few unsuccessful Canadian and 

 American paper mills have been forced 

 to realize. Every additional mile a 

 paper mill is obliged to travel for logs, 

 the costs of the paper product will re- 

 flect an advance. 



E. H. Backus, President of the Min- 

 nesota and Ontario Paper Company, 

 at Fort Frances, Ont., stated recently 

 to Western Canadian publishers that 

 the increasing inaccessibility of pulp 

 limits from the mills is making paper 

 dearer. 



Replying to a specific question on 

 this point, Mr. Backus wrote the Cana- 

 dian Forestry Association as follows : 

 "It is true that I have recently stated 

 that year by year the inaccessibility of 

 the pulpwood supply is increasing. 

 The mills have been cutting their most 

 accessible timber first. Forest fires 

 are continually making large inroads 

 on pulpwood. This situation is a 

 most natural one, and will bring high- 

 er pulpwood costs as time goes on." 



Unlike small saw mills, the perma- 

 nently located pulp mill cannot pack 

 up its equipment and follow the re- 

 treating forest. Some Canadian cor- 

 porations have come to see, however, 

 that with care in operating limits, 

 thorough protection against fire, cou- 

 pled with planting on cut-over lands, 

 pulpwood forests can be perpetuated 

 indefinitely ; accessibility of supplies 

 need be lessened but little. 



Up to the present stage in Canada 

 the lack of modern fire protection, for 

 which the Governments, as trustees of 

 the timber resources, are chieflv re- 



sponsible, has reduced the near-at-hand 

 bodies of pulpwood more than the ac- 

 tual cut of logs. The fires of last 

 summer in Ontario and Quebec are an 

 illustration of this fact. The forest 

 fire record in Ontario and Quebec dur- 

 ing the past twenty years accounts for 

 vastly more of the accessible forest 

 wealth than has passed into lumber and 

 pulp. 



Without question, causes other than 

 unheeded fires are at the root of the 

 paper price advances in war time, but 

 it remains true that since the first pa- 

 per factory in Canada began to operate, 

 the fire fiend has been laying his tax 

 on the paper consumer. 



Who Am I? 



I am more powerful than the com- 

 bined armies of the world. 



I have destroyed more men than all 

 the wars of the world. 



I am more deadly than bullets, and 

 I have wrecked more homes than the 

 mightiest of siege guns. 



I steal in the United States alone, 

 over $300,000,000 each year. 



I spare no one, and I find my vic- 

 tims among rich and poor alike ; the 

 young and old ; the strong and weak ; 

 widows and orphans know me. 



I loom up to such proportions that 

 I cast my shadow over every field of 

 labor from the turning of the grind- 

 stone to the moving of every railway 

 train. 



I massacre thousands upon thou- 

 sands of wage earners in a year. 



I lurk in unseen places, and do most 

 of my work silently. You are warned 

 against me, but you heed not. 



I am relentless, I am everywhere; in 

 the home, on the streets, in the factory, 

 at railway crossings, and on the sea. 



I bring sickness, degradation and 

 death, and yet few seek to avoid me. 



I destroy, crush or maim ; I give 

 nothing, but take all. 

 . I am your worst enemy. 



I AM CARELESSNESS. 



