Forest Conditions. 353 



1. Forest Conditione. 



The forest area has at various times and by various 

 authorities been roughly estimated, the latest estimate 

 being one and a quarter million square miles, which 

 would make the forest percent about 34. But this 

 includes the open woodlands of the northern territory 

 and of the prairies, which, while of great importance 

 to the local settlers, are for the most part probably 

 or surely not of commercial value. Commercially 

 valuable forests, actually or prospectively, are found 

 only in British Columbia and in the old provinces, the 

 two forest regions separated, just as in the United 

 States, by the forestless region, except that north of 

 the prairie region a continuous belt of open woodland 

 extends to near the mouth of the Mackenzie River. 

 A careful examination of the sources of information 

 has led the writer to the conclusion that less than 500,- 

 000 square miles or round 300 million acres would 

 cover fully the commercially valuable forest land, 

 two-fifths of which is to be found in British Columbia. 



Indeed, although we are accustomed to look upon 

 Canada as a great forest country, it really possesses 

 about 40 percent less commercial forest area than the 

 United States. It will be understood that all such 

 statistics are merely rough estimates, the data being 

 slim, and eked out by conjectures based on geograph- 

 ical conditions which predicate the character of the 

 countrj^. Most unreasonable speculations and cal- 

 culations* as to amount of timber standing and value 

 have been made on impossible assumptions. 



*As an instance, one statistician by mere mathematical figuring, namely, de- 

 ducting the known crop and pasture area from the total land area would make the 

 forest area of Quebec over 209 million acres. This includes the country north of 



