FORESTS OR DESERTS ?
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—The statement, emanating from Government sources, was recently made that Douglas fir in British Columbia might hold out for fifteen years. This estimate, of course, entirely ignores several important factors. To begin with, the estimate of the amount of the total stand is based on inflated cruises and, again, much of this timber is of inferior quality, a large amount is inaccessible, and other areas are absolutely necessary for the protection of the watersheds and cannot be utilized. In addition to all of these factors, no allowance has been made for the tremendous losses caused by fire, insects, disease and wind, going on all the time, as well as the large amount of waste in logging, running up to 25,000 board feet or more per acre. It has frequently been stated that of all the timber that has disappeared from British Columbia only 5 per cent. has been actually utilized, 95 per cent. having been wasted through the above-men- tioned causes. More timber has been destroyed by lire in British Columbia than is standing to-day in all of Canada, but more important than all of these factors is the perfectly patent fact that Canada and the whole Continent are already over-denuded of forested area.
The annual losses due to lack of the protective influence of the forests amount to a larger sum than that derived from all the forest products combined, and still these forests are being ruthlessly cut down to provide raw material for industries that are being operated without profit, and in many cases at an actual loss. Could anything be more idiotic than cutting down trees without profit to the operators, when we are at the same time making our country uninhabitable by rapidly converting a once fertile land into a barren wilderness ? Droughts are increasing, cyclones are increasing, floods are increasing, and dust storms, hail storms, forest fires, insect pests, forest diseases, soil erosion and loss of fertility in our farm lands, are all increasing in violence and extent. Our climate has become erratic and unstable since such a large portion of our climatic regulator or safety-valve, namely, our forested area, has been dissipated ; the danger point has already been passed, and we are to-day paying an enormous price for our folly.
President Hoover recently closed the United States national forests to cutting, in order to conserve them and at the same time assist the lumber manufacturers, while our Canadian Governments decline to reduce the cut on Crown lands to the extent of even 35 per cent., which would not only help to conserve our forest remnant but would go a long way towards stabilizing the paper and lumber industries. The present low prices for all wood products are simply the consequence of over-production, which can only be remedied by a reduction in the cut oh Crown lands, as the individual will not cease cutting while he has a tree left. If the Governments had adopted this often-suggested, legitimate and absolutely necessary means of control, our paper and lumber industries would not be in their present deplorable condition, entailing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of the people's money.—I am, Sir, &c., - Paris. • FRANK J. D. BARN.II:Mr. [We have had to shorten this letter.— En. Spectator.]
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