90 REPORT OF THE FORESTRY COMMITTEE 



and $100,000 amounts. The thing that we want at the present time is these East- 

 ern States particularly is to have a definite notion in each State of what is potential 

 forest land and what is potential agricultural land. 



Mr. Alfred Gaskill, of New Jersey: It is literally a crying shame that we 

 cannot develop, whether through plantations or through remnants — I prefer the 

 latter in most cases — the maintenance of forest remnants as parks to serve our 

 cities and communities. I might go a step farther and ask Professor Toumey 

 if he would seriously advocate any organization unit in this country deliberately 

 spending money, raising it by bond issue or in whatever way you please, for the 

 establishment of a forest plantation or even any investment in a discarded forest 

 property. To my mind, municipal financing to invest public money in such a 

 project would be very questionable. Lots of people would come back to us and 

 say this : You say, by your admission, you cannot make two or three per cent on 

 that and we can put our money in plenty of things. That is only by way of a 

 little illustration, but there is something behind it. 



The thing that I really have in mind is the application of this planting idea 

 to specific conditions. I feel pretty strongly that in a large part of our forestry 

 work it is a good thing and will apply generally, but when it comes to a question 

 of forest planting, I want to know specifically whether — I do not care whether 

 it is a public corporation or private individual — there is enough behind it that is 

 material, or whether it is purely sentimental, to justify the undertaking; if there 

 is, go ahead. If it is simply a question of forest planting, I do not think we have 

 made quite enough discrimination with respect to the kinds of trees to be planted, 

 having in mind our local conditions and our market. I think there is a disposi- 

 tion amongst all of us to fly to what is natural, to put in more and more things 

 that are thoroughly at home, or else to fly to the other extreme and try experi- 

 ments. 



Mr. Elwood Wilson, of Canada: Mr. Chairman, for the last eight years I 

 have been face to face with this problem of whether commercial reforestation 

 was a profitable thing, and there is at least one branch of industry using wood 

 as a raw material which must come around to the point of view of reforestation 

 and that is the pulp and paper industry. The quantities used are so large, and the 

 areas which are covered in order to get the necessary amount of raw material are 

 so immense, that the time will inevitably come when the mere harvesting and de- 

 livery of the crop to the mill will be more than the product will justify. After 

 very careful consideration, and some experimenting, I am convinced that it will 

 pay the paper companies and pulp companies to plant up their own forests, and, 

 briefly, for these reasons : In the first place, those companies are always situated 

 where water power is cheap ; they are generally in an out of the way place where 

 surrounding lands can be picked up at small prices. The result is that by careful 

 planting and laying out plantations, a great many things can be taken care of 

 which will ultimately lessen the cost of the product. For instance, if you buy 

 lands reasonably near your mill, you decrease wonderfully your drive costs, the 

 cost of getting your material to the mill, you decrease the cost of floor products, 

 you decrease the cost of administration and you decrease the cost of lumbering] 

 because you do not have to carry your provisions so far, you do not ha\e to de- 

 pend on any specific time of the year for your cutting and you are much more able 

 ■to easily get labor. We have undertaken— of course it is only in embryo as yet- 

 to lay out sections of land and plant them, with the specific idea of harvesting 

 crops in the future. We are planting so as to be near the mill, planting so as 

 to be near the streams where it is necessary, and I am fully convinced that as the 

 prices of timber rise, and the need for wood becomes more and more acute that 

 all of the pulp and paper companies will be driven or forced into planting for 

 their own protection. They have large investments in wood, it is the only thing 



