706 TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION K. 
stretches of virgin forest is Siberia. Although the density of Siberian 
forests cannot compare with well-stocked land in Europe or America, her 
areas are so vast that it cannot be doubted that this country possesses 
enormous stores of wood. But the difficulty in her case is to get them out. 
The navigation of the Arctic Ocean is too dangerous to be undertaken for 
timber cargoes at anything like present prices. Nor would it be profitable 
to move timber along the Trans-Siberian Railway. The only way to get 
part of Siberia’s timber to market is to float or ship it down the rivers, 
such as the Amur, that debouch into the Pacific. This is already being 
done to some extent, and in time such supplies will go some way towards 
satisfying the demands of China, Japan, and Australia. 
The growing scarcity of supplies of timber is clearly reflected in the prices 
on the world’s markets. Thus in Britain the largest class of timber has 
risen in value 28 per cent. in the last fifteen years. Concurrently with the 
rise in price there has been a marked falling off in quality, so that the 
real rise in price has been much more than the figures indicate. The 
United States Department of Agriculture recently issued a table, which 
showed the prices ruling for various classes of timber in various American 
markets during the past twenty-two years. Of thirty-two brands of timber, 
nine had risen over 100 per cent., and only two had risen less than 25 per 
cent. Effective relief through the agency of timber substitutes seems 
improbable. Concrete and iron are, of course, used to some extent in place 
of wood, and there is a talk of sugar-cane stalks becoming important in 
paper-making. But with it all, the demands for wood continue to grow, 
and although economic prophecies have often proved to be wrong, it seems 
impossible to escape the conclusion that the future of the world’s timber 
supplies is distinctly disconcerting. It would therefore appear to be in the 
interests of every country to take energetic steps to prevent the wasteful 
destruction of timber by forest fires, to see that denuded areas are at once 
regenerated, and to undertake the planting of all land that can be better 
utilised under silviculture than through the agency of pastoral occupation. 
2. The Forests of Canada. By R. H. CampBeE.u. 
The area of forest in Canada containing timber of present value is 
probably not more than 500 to 600 million acres, and the area which can be 
considered as entering into the question of a supply of lumber is probably 
one half of that area, with a stand of 500 to 600 billion feet board measure. 
The quantity of pulpwood is large, and may equal one billion cords. 
The present production in Canada annually is about ten billion feet board 
measure of all wood products, of which four billion would be timber of a size 
suitable for sawing into lumber. If the production did not increase rapidly 
beyond this figure the supply would last indefinitely, but when the possibi- 
lities of the future are considered in relation to the consumption in the United 
States of forty billion feet board measure of lumber and a possible total 
of one hundred million feet board measure of wood products, and to the net 
imports of the Continent of Europe, which is several billions, the fifty billion 
feet board measure of pine of merchantable size still standing in Canada, does 
not give a large outlook for future expansion, and even the 300 billion feet 
estimated for the best timber of British Columbia cannot be termed in- 
exhaustible. 
Pulpwood is an uncertain, though a large quantity, and there seems no 
danger, even with a greatly increased demand, of early exhaustion, but a large 
part of the stand is on the Arctic and Hudson Bay watersheds, and therefore 
not readily available for other than domestic consumption; railway con- 
struction and settlement are advancing into these northern districts, and 
