natural increment. It was giving not alone the increment, but much 
of the capital stock as well; in the case of pine the larger part of the 
capital has gone. As time passed, logs in the driving streams appeared 
sthaller and smaller. The capacity of that area for periodical production 
had seriously declined. 
A notable consequence of severe culling of coniferous species has 
been to encourage the growth of hardwoods. The transition has been 
a money-loser from every standpoint. The great woods of commercial 
demand are coniferous—spruce, pine, hemlofk, etc., and the great 
lumbering and pulp making industries of the province of New Brunswick 
cannot be maintained on other than coniferous forests. 
Getting ridof | Under the proposed New Brunswick Forest Service 
the fire-plague. should come the control of the fire ranging force. 
Until fire is eliminated, ‘ Conservation of the forests’’ can make no 
real headway. One may as well attempt efficiency by painting the 
lifeboats of a ship and building watertight bulkheads while the hull 
itself is perforated with decay. 
The Director of the Forest Survey has stated that of the 550,000 
,acres examined, 82,270 acres have been burned by fires of fairly recent 
date. Had this area not been burned over, there would have been, 
besides the amount already taken out from time to time, merchantable 
timber standing on those tracts today worth at least $714,000.. This 
figure applies to only one-thirteenth of the whole area to be examined. 
Closing outa Let us consider not the question of culpability for 
costly record. _ losses sustained in the past, but rather how New Bruns- 
wick can bring that record to a close. 
The success of any fire protection arrangement rests, first, upon 
organization. New Brunswick’s laws provide for the appointment of 
a Chief Fire Warden. Under him are fifteen county wardens who 
have a varying number of deputies. In some counties the deputies 
are paid a fixed sum annually, and in others they are remunerated on 
the per diem hasis. 
By this system, 160 men, on an average, are on the Government 
pay .roll as permanent wardens. -They look after fire protection and 
game during the spring and summer, and game.protection during the 
fall and winter. 
The fire wardens, responsible for timber guarding, receive remunera- 
tion varying in amount and form of payment from $2.00 a day to 
$250.00 a year, a few at $300.00, with some county wardens receiving 
up to $900.00 a year. The average amount received last year per man 
was about $52.00. For such pay no body of men can be expected to 
render more than intermittent service or to undertake arduous patrol, 
or to go far afield in search of fires. British Columbia this year, is paying 
its forest rangers $100.00 a month for a six months’ period, for which 
the Government demands and secures an equivalent in energetic ap- 
plication to duty. Ontario pays its forest rangers (under its recently 
re-organized system) $75.00 a month minimum, Quebec pay averaging 
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