Canadian timber trees: their distribution and preservation

Drummond, Andrew Thomas

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CANADIAN TIMBER TREES:

THEIR DISTRIBUTION AND. PRESERVATION.

BY A. T. DRUMMOND.

From the Report of the Montreal Horticultural Society
and Fruit Growers’ Association.

Montreal :
“WITNESS” PRINTING HOUSE, 33, 35 & 37 BONAVENTURE STREET.

—_—_——_—

1879.

\ 2 ‘JUL 2 5 1990 :
Reva oF 1S

CANADIAN TIMBER TREES.—THEIR Dk ‘“IBUTION
AND PRESERVATION.

BY A. T. DRUMMOND.

Apart from agriculture, no individual industry in Canada has
such importance as the lumber trade. In the United States,
industries based on the manufacture of lumber and timber are only
exceeded in point of magnitude by the iron interests, The extent
of territory on this Continent covered by forests, the number of
men directly employed in preparing the products of these forests
for market, and the very numerous and important industries to
which the use of timber and lumber give rise, all point to the
subject of our timber trees as of national interest. We have, in
fact, little conception of the magnitude of the lumbering business
in the country, until we are brought face to face with statistics
in regard to it. About twenty-one per cent. of the whole American
Continent is believed to be woodland. In North America alone,
it is estimated that 1,460,000,000 acres are covered by trees, and
of this quantity about 900,000,000 are in Canada. Contrast this
with the acres of forests and woodlands in the European States.
Prussia has, it is said, about 10,000,000 acres ; Bavaria, 3,300,000,
France, 2,700,000; whilst England and Belgium are so denuded
of forests as to have but insignificant areas of these in proportion
to their sizes. These vast woodlands in Canada include a very
considerable portion of Ontario and the eastern provinces, and of
British Columbia, whilst in Manitoba, the country, excepting in
the Eastern and North-Western sections, is chiefly prairie, and in
the North-West Territories, the true forests are largely along and
north of the Saskatchewan.

A few facts will give some conception of the importance of
these vast woodlands to us, and at the same time of the enormous
annual drain on our lumbering resources now going on. In the three

4

years ending 1872, when the lumber trade saw its halcyon days,
the production of deals and boards in the Ottawa and St. Lawrence
valleys alone, amounted to dn average annually of 809,000,000
feet. The average number of logs annually cut in those valleys,
and brought to the banks of the streams to be floated down to the
saw mills engaged in the production of this large quantity of deals
and boards, was 5,264,000. Whilst of the product of these miils
an annual average of 170,000,000 feet went to Great Britain, 93
cargoes were, in 1872 alone, shipped to South America, and
276,000,000 feet were taken by the Eastern United States; that
part of this large quantity which was shipped by the water routes
being embraced in 1,720 cargoes.

During the same three years the exports of square timber from
Quebec averaged 21,558,000 cubic feet annually. The square
timber went chiefly to Great Britain, and whilst about three-fifths
of it was white pine, there was included no inconsiderable propor-
tion of other trees. Nearly one-sixth was composed of oak, one-
twelfth of red pine, one-nineteenth each of birch and elm; ash‘
basswood, tamarac, walnut and butternut largely making up the
balance.

But aside from lumber and square timber cut for export, there
is an enormous consumption in the Dominion—a consumption
greatly increased by the progressive spirit of the past thirty years,
There are in the Dominion about 6,000 miles of railroads, which
originally required in their construction 18,000,000 of sleepers or
railway ties, and, taking the life of a tie at five years, the annual
requirements of these railways must be towards 3,500,000 ties.
Each railway has its telegraph system requiring originally the cut-
ting down of 175,000 young trees to supply the requisite poles, and
a large annual addition to replace those which become decayed or
otherwise unserviceable. On the sides of the railways would be
probably 12,000 miles of fencing, necessitating 9,000,000 pickets,
and over 60,000,000 feet of sawn timber in its contruction. House-
building and pavements alone must annually consume an enormous
amount of lumber ; but wood enters very largely even into the
manufacture of what we are accustomed to regard as insignificant

5

articles. Shoe pegs are estimated to require in the United States
an annual supply of 100,000 cords, whilst lasts and boot-trees
require 500,000 more. Even the manufacture of tools consumes
on this continent about half a million cords of the finest qualities
of timber,

Vegetation is not distributed over the globe regardless of order.
There is a regular series of changes from the tropics to the Arctic
seas. Under the equator are the palms, bananas and plantains:
in the tropical zones on either side are the fig-trees and ferns of
tree-like growth ; beyond the immediate tropics are included some
of the vast sandy barrens or deserts of the warmer regions of Africa,
Asia, and America, in which grow the succulent fig-marigolds and
curious cacti; in higher latitudes are the countries of the orange,
the pomegranate and the vine, with the zone of the pines, firs and
other evergreens beyond, shading thence gradually through
heathers and grasses, until at the base of the glaciers in polar lands
vegetation is chiefly met with in the form of variously colored
lichens mottling the bare rock. A series of changes precisely cor-
responding to this is met with on mountain sides. Vines are
cultivated in the valleys at the base of the Alps; in the course of
the ascent chestnuts, beech trees, firs and little downy Alpine
plants become successively prevalent until at about 9000 feet the
region of continuous snow begins. These successive changes in
the vegetation are not inaptly likened to a series of belts of some-
what irregular breadth bound one above the other around the
mountain sides.

Canada lies partly in the Arctic zone, characterized by an ab- ©
sence of trees, partly in a semi-Arctic zone of poplars and birches,
and partly in two more temperate zones of pines and beech trees,
whilst in the southern sections are a few of the characteristic trees
of the Middle United States.

There are sixty-five species of trees in Ontario, Quebec and the
Maritime Provinces. Of these, excepting perhaps one, all are
found in Ontario, south of the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay,
whilst probably a dozen range as far north as James Bay.

Not much is yet known of the range of our timber trees west of

6

Lake Superior, but we are now fairly familiar with it in the country
around that lake and eastward of it to the Atlantic Ocean. The
eastern provinces are within the region of the tree forests, whilst a
very large part of Manitoba and an immense section of the terri-
tory between that province and the Rocky Mountains is more or
less open prairie. The vast country commencing with Labrador
and thence skirting Lake St. John, Hudson Bay and the north shores
of Lake Nipigon, onwards to the Saskatchewan and Peace River
northward, forms the zone of the balsam, poplar, white birch, aspen
and tamarac. South of this in the Provinces of Quebec and
Ontario are the zones of the pines and the beech—the beech being
chiefly limited to the region south of a line drawn from the outlet
of Lake Superior to Quebec. In that part of the peninsula of
Ontario lying west of the Niagara River is an outlier of another
zone, represented there by the walnut, buttonwood, tulip tree,
sassafras and the chestnut, and by an increasing abundance of
white, red and other oaks.

There are various causes influencing the range of vegetation in
the Dominion, but in Ontario and Quebec the northern limits of
trees are largely circumscribed by the physical condition of the
country as well as by the climate. The height of land or water-
shed from which the rivers flow on the one side to Hudson Bay,
and on the other to the great lakes and the St. Lawrence, has a
very tortuous course, and beyond it very few species of trees range
northward. . The country on either side of this watershed for some
distance is more or less mountainous. ‘To the northward of Lake
St. John the whole country is very broken, whilst extensive cold
swamps are everywhere interpersed through the Albany River
section. Both the red and white pine appear to follow somewhat
closely the watershed in their northern limits of range.

To the most casual observer the absence of trees and of mosses
is a striking feature of the prairies of Manitoba and westward.
That the frequent fires which devastate the prairies have much to
do with the scarcity of trees is beyond question. This very scarcity,
however, gives rise to a more than ordinary rapid evaporation of
moisture from the soil and thus deprives the mosses of that con-

Tt

dition which is so congenial, and in most cases, necessary to their
growth, and accounts thus for their absence.

The section of country surrounding Lake Superior has a peculiar
flora. On the lake margin, but especially on its jutting headlands
the vegetation has almost a semi-Arctic type. The beech and
white oak are everywhere absent, while on the north shore the red
oak, maple and basswood are almost entirely wanting. But it is
less among the trees than among the herbaceous forms that the
vegetation is striking. On Keweenan Point and Thunder Cape
are semi-Arctic plants—the remnants—like the Maritime plants of
this and other great lakes—of a former flora, and suggestive of the
colder climate of that part of the country in a now-past epoch.
The moist, cool but equable atmosphere, resulting from the
presence of such a large body of deep water as Lake Superior,
readily accounts for the continuance of these little plants there,
and has much to do with the absence of so many of the larger
forms of vegetation. A short distance inland from Thunder Bay—
and this no doubt is a mere illustration of what occurs everywhere
on the coast of the lake—there is, however, a remarkable change.
As the effect of the lake air becomes less perceptible, plants of
more temperate range appear, until at about two miles or more up
the Kaministiquia River no boreal or semi-Arctic plants are met
with, and the vegetation has much the appearance of that of the
river valleys of Central Canada.

The vegetation of the projecting headlands of the lakes is
affected by the action of the general flow of the waters of these
lakes towards the sea, plants peculiar to the southern and west-
ern sides of the lakes being thus found on the immediate shores
of the northern sides as well. On the other hand, the coasts of
the Lower St. Lawrence are influenced by the cool atmosphere
attending the Labrador Arctic Current, a branch of which enters
the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the Straits of Belle Isle.

So rapidly has the Western Ontario Peninsula been brought
under cultivation that we can hardly now realize the extent to
which it was covered by magnificent forests fifty or more years ago.
In 1834 this part of the country was visited by Robert Brown and

8

James Macnab, and their observations are thus referred to by J. C.
Louden: ‘‘In the neighbourhood of the falls of Niagara the trees
were of various descriptions, of great size, and more intermixed
than we had hitherto seen. The tulip trees were of great height,
with stems varying from 8 ft. to 12 ft. in circumference. Platanus
trees, oaks, elms, limes, ashes, walnuts, beeches, poplars and white
pines were all equally large and lofty. The hemlock spruce was
scarcely seen, but the arbor vite seemed to take its place, for it is,
without exception, the most abundant tree in the neighbourhood
of the falls, very tall, and sometimes tapering to a height of 60 ft.
Between Niagara and Hamilton was the only district in Canada
where the Laurus Sassafras was seen: the trees were all small
though remarkably healthy. The great natural forests of the
country presented chiefly oaks of great height, and when the
ground became in the least degree elevated, white pines abounded,
Near New London (now London) the specimens of the trees, par-
ticularly of the platanus (plane tree or buttonwood) were very large.
Stems were measured of from 15 ft. to zo ft. in girth, and many of
the trees had straight trunks of from 1o ft. to 30 ft. high before
branching. The white pine near New London has a trunk varying
from 13 ft. to 18 ft. in circumference, and some trees which had
been blown down were measured and found to average 160 ft. in
length. The oaks here vary from ro ft. to 15 ft. in circumference
of trunk, with 45 ft. and 50 ft. of straight clear stems. Between
New London and Goderich, a distance of 60 miles, the road
passes through one continued dense forest. The trees were prin-
cipally elms, averaging from 1o ft. to 25 ft. in circumference.
Mixed with them were beeches, birches and ashes of ordinary
dimensions. Horizontal sections of the white pines and hemlock
spruce exhibited between 300 and 400 annual layers; oaks 200 ;
arid elms 300. On the banks of the Maitland River many very
noble specimens of platanus are seen with stems varying from 18
ft. to 36 ft. in circumference.”

The extent to which the different species of timber trees indi-
vidually occur in Canada is a matter of great interest in view of
the increasing demand for lumber. The Prane TREE or Burron-

9

woop, and the CHESTNUT are hardly now in sufficient abundance
to make them economically important, and, as already indicated,
their range in Canada is very circumscribed. The Burronwoop
grows most luxuriantly on the banks of rivers, in deep, moist soil.
Biack WALNUT has become scarce, and threatens soon to be-
come virtually extinct. It. is now chiefly found with us on the
tributaries of the River St. Clair. BurrERNuT and WuiTE Oak
have about a similar range in Eastern and Western Ontario, and
though not now of very large size, are in fair abundance, es-
pecially in the Western Peninsula; but in the Province of Quebec
they are comparatively scarce, White Oak becoming a rare tree in
the St. Lawrence Valley towards Quebec, though found inland.
Butternut is said to be absent on Bay of Fundy coast. Basswoop
is on the whole plentiful in the country lying south of a line,
drawn from the Bay of Fundy to Thunder Bay. ‘In Southern
Manitoba, it is also a well-known tree. In Western Canada it
enters somewhat largely into the commoner classes of furniture.
Even as. far north as the Manitoulin Islands it is frequent, and is
there a large tree, sometimes attaining two feet in diameter. A
small outlying number of these trees, as well as maples, around
Lake St. John, would seem to indicate a milder climate there
than the high latitude of the lake would suggest. Rep Oak is
entirely absent from the whole north shore of Lake Superior, ex-
cepting, curiously, Michipicoten Island. It is a common, though |
not now a very large tree, throughout Ontario, occurring as far
north as Lake Temiscamingue at the head-waters of the Ottawa;
and in the Province of Quebec ranges down the St. Lawrence
Valley towards the neighbourhood of Quebec. YELLOW BIRCH
appears to be a more familiar tree in this valley than around the

great lakes. In Gaspé square timber two feet across is made

from it. WHITE BircH, on the other hand, is a more northern
tree, occurring everywhere far north, and in considerable abun-
dance—even at Moose Factory, on Hudson Bay, being large
enough for canoes.

Wuire Asu is fairly common from the neighborhood of
Montreal West to the Georgian Bay District and Manitoulin Is-

10

lands and Southward. Brrcu has a somewhat similar range, but
is found farther down the St. Lawrence Valley, and occurs on the
northern shores of Lake Huron. In Central and South-Western
Ontario it is perhaps the most commonly met with tree. In New
Brunswick, though met with inland, the beech is absent from the
Bay of Fundy coast—the result, probably, of the heavy fogs there.

SuGAR MAPLE is an abundant tree in Nova Scotia, Prince
Edward’s Island and New Brunswick, throughout the St. Lawrence
Valley, and in Western Ontario as far as the north shore of Lake
Huron and asthe east and west, but not the north coasts of
Lake Superior. AspEN and BatsAm Poptar, whilst familiar trees
throughout Ontario and Quebec, range far Northward from New-
foundland to James Bay and northwestward, and are most abund-
ant in these higher latitudes. Wurre Em, perhaps our most
graceful tree and forming also a valuable item of export, is fairly
common from Gaspé to Lake Nipigon and Southward, and espe-
cially in the western peninsula of Ontario. Inthe valley of the
Moose River, about 120 miles from its mouth, Prof. Robert Bell
has found a small outlier of these trees. Rep CEDAR as a shrub
extends high northward, but asa tree it is scarce north of the
Georgian Bay and north or eastward of the Ottawa River, and is
little known in the Ottawa Valley. On the other hand, WHITE
CEDAR, or ARBORVIT&, is common’ everywhere from Gaspé and
Lake St. John through the upper Gatineau district to James’
Bay and southward. Even in the Ontario peninsula it grows
luxuriantly, attaining a height of sometimes from §0 to 60 feet.
In New Brunswick it is not uncommon, but in Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland it seems to be wanting.

HeEMLOcK occurs in Nova Scotia, but is rare or wanting on the
east coast of New Brunswick, and is wanting in Gaspé and in the
Lake Superior district, whilst in the Province of Quebec, south of
the St. Lawrence, it is very abundant, ‘its bark forming there a
most important item of export. In the Ottawa Valley and in the
Ontario peninsula it is a fairly well known tree. TAMARAC is
comparatively common throughout both Ontario and Quebec, and
even as far northward as Moose Factory, on Hudson Bay, is a
large tree measuring two feet in diameter of its trunk.

11

The WuireE and Rep Pines are, however, the trees in which
centre perhaps the most interest. Pircu Prine is of mere local
occurrence and the BANKSIAN Pine, though abundant in the Lake
Superior region eastward to the Lower St. Lawrence and of mer-
chantable size, according to Prof. Robert Bell, along the southern
branches of the Albany River, is in the more accessible sections
only a scrubby tree. In the Province of Quebec south of the St.
Lawrence little pine is now left, though thirty years ago large
lumbering operations were carried on in the country lying south of
Quebec and east of Sherbrooke. In the Ontario peninsula as well,
pine is now scarce and even what is there is of small size. The
maximum development of the red and white pine appears to have
been attained in the stretch of country extending from Gaspé and
New Brunswick through Northern Maine and the Saguenay dis-
trict along the valley of the St. Lawrence westward to the Ottawa
River and Georgian Bay, and onward through Northern Michigan
and the district on the north shore of Lake Huron and the Lake
Superior country to Rainy Lake. In Eastern Manitoba there is
some pine, but the zone of true forests beyond that province on-
ward to the Rocky Mountains chiefly includes aspen, balsam,
poplar, white birch and Banksian pine. Large as this territory is
in which the white and red pine are found, the extensive sections
of country now left quite destitute of pine warn us that these pine
forests are not co-extensive with our annual requisitions on them.
In the Ontario Legislature it was recently stated that one source
of revenue of that province was visibly affected because that now—
though this is probably an error—there were no more timber limits
available, all apparently being under lease,to lumbermen. At the |
present time the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys furnish the larger
part of the pine lumber and timber. Very nearly as much is an-
nually cut on the St. Lawrence and its tributaries below Montreal
as in the Ottawa valley, but contrary to the general impression and
to the customs returns, very nearly two-thirds of the square timber
and the lumber, manufactured on the Upper Ottawa is, as Mr. A. J.
Russell has pointed out to me, from the Ontario forests. Some
conception of the abundance of these trees in these valleys, and also

12. f3

of the enormous requisitions annually made by lumbermen upon
our pine forests, is shown by the fact already referred to that during
the years 1870, 1871 and 1872, the average number of logs banked.
upon the small streams tributary to the St. Lawrence and Ottawa
was over five and one quarter millions annually.

The map which accompanies this report, and which is the joint
production of Prof. Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of
Canada and the writer, indicates our present knowledge of the
northern limits of distribution of the leading forest trees in Ontario,
Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. Inthe projection of this map
the sources of information have been largely derived from personal
observation of Prof. Bell and the writer, but, in addition, all reli-
able published lists have been consulted, and access has been had
to the private notes of the late Dr. John Bell, Dr. D. Maclagan, of
Edinburgh, and others; whilst from Mr. James Richardson, Mr.
R. W. Ells, and some other members of the Geological Survey, and
from Prof. Macoun, of Belleville, Prof. Bailey and Mr. E. Jack, C.E.,
of Frederickton, N.B., and Dr. Lawson, of Halifax, N.S., much val-
uable information has been obtained, Mr. A. J. Russell, of the
Crown Timber Office, Ottawa, has also supplied some data con-
nected with the distribution of the pine, besides being the source
of some important facts and statistics regarding timber limits and
the production of square timber, which have been freely made use
of in this report. Possibly, as the country is further explored, the
lines indicated on the map may be slightly changed, and some
trees may be found of local occurrence—as in the case of the elm,
basswood, plane tree and maple—in places considerably north of
the limits laid down, and our information regarding the range of
trees in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward’s Island
is not quite so full as could be desired. The map will, however, be
found to fairly represent the northern limits of distribution.

PRESERVATION OF THE TIMBER TREES,

So important is the lumber industry in Canada, that, looked at
from a commercial point alone, perhaps no trade question has
around it so much of interest as that of the conservation of our

~

13

forests with a view to the continuance of that industry. The drain
which has been going on for thirty years past on the resources of
these forests has been so enormous and so continued that though
it may have contributed largely to swelling our exports, drawing
wealth to the country and giving us increased commercial status
in other countries, it yet opens up the consideration of how long
the supply will last. And if, as is self-evident, under the present
system of farming out the public lands, a day is drawing near when
the supply will not equal the demand, it behooves us, if possible,
to adopt some means to preserve or recuperate these forests. A
reference to the accompanying map will convince any one’ac-
quainted with the localities—each year extending further north-
_ ward and westward—where the lumbermen obtain their logs, that
the area in which the pine may be expected to be found in fair
abundance and accessible at a moderate cost, is not so extensive
but that another twenty years of working the timber limits to the
extent done for a few years past, will result in a very sensible les-
sening of our exports of white pine. The lumberman’s axe is not,
however, the only, or even the greatest drain on the pineries.
Forest fires, it is believed, have caused even greater destruction,
not only by reason of the vast area ruined, but because that large
and small trees are alike consumed, as well the huge trunk which
would be suitable for the lumbermen as the smaller trees, which in
the course of successive years would also become large enough to
attract their attention. The extent of this ruin will be appreciated
when it is remembered that not until the pine is about one hundred
years old is it of good merchantable size for square timber, and
that therefore to replace the pine groves would be the work of
towards acentury. There is, however, the further important fact
that after a forest fire, pines are usually replaced by a growth of
birch, poplar, and other trees, though whether the pine gradually
asserts its position and overshadowing these in turn replaces them,
is a question yet to be settled.

Two very pertinent considerations therefore present them-
selves :— 7

First, forest fires and their prevention.

14

Second, the regulations regarding the sale of timber limits to
lumbermen.

FOREST FIRES. :

No person who has visited the Saguenay District, the Upper
Ottawa, the shores of Lake Superior, and the Albany River
Country, can be blind to the fact that forest fires have been a
source of vast ruin. Many hundreds of square miles have been
laid waste by them, and these fires are generally, the result of
carelessness or wilful criminality. There are Acts of Parliament
+n both the Provinces of Quebec (Act of 1870) and Ontario (Act
of 1878) laying down regulations for their prevention, and
imposing fines for neglect of these regulations ; but forest fires
continue, and no one appears to be punished. Lumbermen and
others are ready to blame the Indians for carelessness in regard
to their camp fires, but are not white men more frequently
blameable, and with their greater knowledge and intelligence more
criminally culpable ? The statutes, however, are defective. That
for Ontario provides that no person shall start any fire on or near
a forest, between the first of April and the first of November,
except for the purposes of clearing land, cooking, obtaining warmth,
or for some industrial purpose, and then in a very indefinite way
goes_on to require that when clearing land ‘“ every reasonable
care and precaution” shall be observed. Now, why should it not
be made unlawful to start fires in the woods aft any time of the year
except for such purposes ?—and even with the object of clearing
land, why should this virtually unrestricted permission be given
during the midsummer months, when there is most danger from it
and least necessity for it? The Quebec Statute goes a step
farther and forbids the starting of any fire at any time whatever

except for the above recited purposes, and in cases of clearing of

land, makes it unlawful between the 1st July and the 1st Septem-
ber. Now this close period might be very safely extended in both
provinces to the period between the 15th June and the 15th Sep-
tember, or even the rst June and 1st October, without interfering
in the slightest degree with the necessities of the settler, and thus
the heated term would be entirely passed. Both Acts provide in-

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15

structions in cases of fires required for cooking, warmth or
industrial purposes, and the Ontario Act very properly makes it
imperative that every person in charge of a drive of timber, survey
or exploring party, or any other party requiring camp fires, shall ©
once in each week read and explain to his men the provisions of
the Act. The Quebec Act omits this very necessary precaution,
necessary because railway and other surveyors are sometimes
among the greatest offenders against the Act. The Quebec Act
also omits the proviso which the Ontario statute includes, that
locomotive engineers shall have their fire boxes properly guarded
and their smoke-stacks furnished with screens. Both Acts, how-
ever, only impose a penalty of fifty dollars or three months
imprisonment if that is not paid, for any infringment of the Act.
Now, when such wholesale destruction is often the result, why
should the offender receive so light a punishment ? Why should
not the offence be visited with heavy imprisonment without the
option of a fine? Those in charge of drives of timber, surveying
parties, &c., should be made personally responsible for the acts in
this respect of those under them, under the penalty of a fine,
whilst the actual culprit should in all cases be liable to imprison-
ment. So important is this question of the protection of the
forests from fires, not merely to the governments which have the
administration of the Crown Lands, and to lumbermen who lease
them, and to the bankers who make advances on timber limits,
but also to the large number of settlers in the new districts who
have been in the past and are liable to be in the future rendered
destitute and homeless through these bush fires, that it is sugges-
tive whether it would not be well that every Crown Lands agent
or bushranger should be constituted a fire inspector, whose duty
should be to enquire into the cause of each bush fire, with a view
to the detection and punishment of the offender. As facts now
are, the offender is probably in most cases an employee, from
' whom the amount of the fine could never be collected, and hence
there could be no attraction to an informer to go to the large
amount of trouble and expense necessary in these distant districts
to secure a conviction. |

16

REGULATIONS REGARDING THE SALE OF TIMBER LIMITS TO

LUMBERMEN.

Under the present system ‘timber limits are put up at auction
at an upset price and sold to the highest bidder. The buyer by
paying an annual fee thereafter and dues on the timber or logs
actually cut, can retain the limit in Ontario so long as he complies —
with the regulations, and in Quebec until 1889. Hecan in Ontario
cut any size of tree, but in Quebec'is limited to those over twelve
‘inches. In both provinces the license gives permission to cut
trees of any and all kinds without restriction, except on lots which
the Government may subsequently sell, when the license is restricted
in Ontario to pine. Even if in Quebec a lumberman cuts timber
under the twelve inches, there are no fines imposed beyond the
possible forfeiture of the license if the Government choose to
enforce it. Now the grave objections of this system are that it
subjects the public lands to unrestricted waste for just such length
of time as the lumberman finds it profitable, without any regard to
the future ; and, on the other hand, it places the Government in
the position of an owner desirous of ‘making the largest possible
‘immediate return, regardless of the impoverishment of his posses-
sions in the near future. — .

The principle of leasing the timber limits for an indefinite .
period of time, and of allowing trees of any size or kind to be cut,
is hardly defensible. There should be a limit in girth beyond
which alone a tree should be considered merchantable. The
forests should also at intervals be allowed a long rest to admit of
the young trees growing up, and the Government as the lessee,
and not the lumberman with his self-interest always at stake, should
be the judge of what that rest should be and when it is required.
It may be said that timber limits under the present system afford
a means of financing, and further that if mill-owners erect expensive
saw-mills they should have some certainty that they will always
have a source from which in coming years to obtain their logs. It
is, however, on the one hand a question whether timber limits
with the great uncertainty attached to them about the kind and

17

quantity of timber on them and their constant exposure to forest
fires, form the most advisable class of security for a banker to

take, and on the other hand, whilst the mill-owner has some

reasonable claim for regard, yet the interests of the country at
large must necessarily be paramount to his individual interests
and, at any rate, his case is not different from that of every other
manufacturer who has in a similar way to provide himself for the
future with supplies of raw material. If all timber limits were
leased for a limited term only—say for five years—all mill-owners
would be placed on terms of equality, and limits would in addition
be kept out of the hands of speculators. A result which would
almost of necessity also follow the shortening of the term of lease,
would be that smaller areas would be purchased. As to the period
of rest which should be allowed there is room for discussion. In
a paper on the pines, read by Mr. John Langton some years ago
before the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, a table was
given showing the estimated rate of growth, and from this it
would appear that at 100 years in age, the pine is about fifteen
inches in diameter, and that the annual increase between that age
and 200 years is very nearly one-fifth of an inch. If this be a
correct estimate, twenty-five years would not be too long a respite,
as even in that time the trees could not increase to a size sufficient
for good square timber, though large enough for saw-logs.

It is asserted that in getting out the larger timber there is a
great deal of unnecessary and reckless damage done to the younger
trees, which might be prevented by more stringent regulations.

To sum up these conclusions :

1. Limits should only be sold for short periods of time, say
for five years, and in smaller areas than in former years has
been the practice.

z. No trees of a less girth than fifty inches at a height of
twelve inches from the ground should be cut, and heavy penalties

should be imposed if they are.

3. On reverting to the Government, each timber limit should
be allowed to rest, say at least twenty-five years, to enable the
younger trees to attain merchantable size.

18

4. The strictest regulations should accompany each lease,
with a view to preventing damage to, or the destruction of the
smaller trees.

The Government, with such regulations might possibly obtain
a smaller upset price per square mile at auction for limits, but
not necessarily so, as the smaller area sold would enable the
lumberman to cut within the shorter time all the merchantable
timber. The restriction to cutting such trees as are fifty inches or
more in girth, would leave the younger timber standing, and the
twenty-five years respite would afford time for this younger timber
to attain merchantable size.

The Dominion Government has made an effort to encourage
tree culture in Manitoba, by making a free grant of 160 acres of
land in the prairie districts to each person who undertakes to
plant a portion of the property with trees under specified
conditions, but the effort has not met with very much success
thus far.

(When compiling the large Map of the Dominion of Canada which was sub-
sequently sent to the Paris Exhibition, the Department of Public Works requested
a loan of this Map, and permission to use it in the completion of their own was
granted, consequently the lines on both will be found to correspond.)

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