Nature uncontrolled is usually wasteful in her methods. Each decade 
has found the forest possessions of New Brunswick and other parts of 
Canada substantially weaker. Logged-over tracts are too often preyed 
upon by fire, and, even with fire kept out, the logging methods now in 
vogue encourage the growth of inferior species. As an illustration of 
this condition, white pine, the most valuable of Canadian timber trees, 
has been almost obliterated from New Brunswick’s lumbering industry, 
although in the year 1825 no less than 400,000 tons of white pine were 
exported from New Brunswick to England. Once the standard species 
in New Brunswick, it represents today, not more than five or six per cent. 
of the total lumber cut of the province. Hemlock, little valued yester- 
day, except for bark, now commands $8.00 to $10.00 per thousand 
board feet rafted at the booms. Spruce, now heading the market for 
saw timber and for paper making was regarded almost a weed tree 
within the experience of lumber operators now living, and has so ad- 
vanced in value as to bring in 1917, $13.00 to $20.00 a thousand board 
feet wholesale, and $9.00 to $12.00 per cord F.O.B. for settlers’ pulp 
wood. The spruce log is the standard in New Brunswick woods opera- 
tions, the commercial timbers ranging in this order: Spruce, Fir, Cedar, 
Hemlock, Pine, Birch, Beech, Maple. 
ae ele Thus, within the past ten years or less. a new and in- 
Maritime Forests creased valuation has been placed by the markets of 
the world on the forest assets of New Brunswick. The 
relatively slight value of a birch stand today is‘no more a guage neces- 
sarily of what it will be tomorrow, than was true of the early price of 
spruce and hemlock. So with every other tree species now within the 
provincial boundaries. The world’s wood consumption is increasing 
enormously. The discovery of new methods of utilising what are now 
nearly useless woods, is making remarkable advances, and certainly 
has many surprises in store. Coupled with these facts must be considered 
the exhaustion of cheap, accessible forests and the rapid deterioration 
of what were recently virgin areas of timber. The supply grows less. 
The demand grows greater. It is for New Brunswick, therefore, to 
take full toll of every square mile of her forest possessions, to realise 
from the markets of the world such tremendous profits as have accrued 
to Sweden and other European countries as well as to some of our 
Canadian provinces that are awake to the advantages of a great timber 
endowment. 
_ Clearly, no private corporation or association of companies or 
individuals can undertake the task of inventorying the timber posses- 
sions of the province, and establishing a permanent policy of protection 
and development. That is a Government function for more reasons 
than one. The long-time element involved in the growing of trees 
is beyond the administrative reach of any but a self-perpetuated insti- 
tution such as the State. The financial profits of even the wisest forest 
policy cannot be checked up week by week as with certain outlays for 
agriculture or fisheries or roads, but at the same time no resource res- 
Sand more surely or generously to preservative measures than the 
orest. 
