A Brief History of Forestry.

Descriptive volumes of note are J. S. Gamble’s Manual of Indian Timbers, new edition, 1902; Trees, Shrubs and Woody Climbers of Bombay Presidency by W. A. Talbot, 1902; Ribbentrop’s Forestry in British India, 1900, and the earlier publication of H. R. Morgan, Forestry in Southern India; Brandis’ Indian Forestry and Distribution of Forests in India. Of professional interest are E. E. Fernandez Manual of Indian Silviculture, unfortunately out of print; the same author’s Forest Industries; D’Arcy’s Manual of Forest Working Plans; C. C. Roger’s Manual of Forest Engineering in India, and B. H. Baden-Powell, Forest Law.

The influence of the development of the Indian Forest Service on the forest policy of other British colonies and of the home country has been considerable and is growing, Indian forest officers being detailed to assist in developing forest policies in these other parts of the British Empire.

CANADA

Report on the Forest Wealth of Canada, by the Statistician of the Department of Agriculture, 1895.

Reports of Crown Lands Departments, of Bureau of Forestry of Ontario, and of Forestry Branch of the Dominion.

Defebaugh’s History of the Lumber Industry of America, Vol. I, 1906, brings together much information on this phase of the subject.

Hough’s Report on Forestry, Vol. II, 1880, has a compilation of earlier statistics.

An Analysis of Canada’s Timber Wealth, by B. E. Fernow, in Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, 1908, attempts a differentiation of commercial forest areas.

The largest single colony of Great Britain and the most important as regards forest supplies, both as to quantity and character, Canada has been for a long time supplying the mother country with a large proportion of her imports.

Although in size larger than the United States, its land area being estimated at over 3,600,000 square miles, Canada has so far attained only one-fifteenth of the population of her neighbor, namely less than 7 million, although now rapidly growing. Much of her territory is still unknown, and will remain for a long time unavailable for civilization owing to its inhospitable climate. Indeed, as yet not one-third of its territory may be considered opened up to civilization, and not much more than 100,000 square miles can be said to be occupied, one-half improved in farms, and two-thirds of this in crops.

Much of the northern country remains unorganized and the vast North West Territory (2,656,000 square miles) between Hudson’s Bay and the Rocky Mountains, as well as Labrador, are for the most part uninhabited except by Indians and a few military and trading posts.

The central interior region, dotted with lakes and intricate river systems, is a continuation of the forestless arid and subarid, plains and prairies of the country West of the Mississippi River, toward the north changing by steps into lowlands studded with open treegrowth, and barren tundra frozen all the year, a million square miles answering to this last description. The Pacific Slope is a rough and lofty mountain country, the extension of the Rockies and Coast Ranges, with a variable, in part humid and temperate, in part dry and rigorous climate, more or less heavily wooded, about 600,000 square miles, with the Fraser River in the South forming the most important drainage basin.

The Atlantic portion, south of the plateau-like, bare, or scantily wooded Hudson Bay and Labrador country, with a climate, somewhat similar to North Eastern Germany, is formed by the slopes of the watersheds of the Great Lakes and of their mighty outlet, the St. Lawrence River and its Gulf; the slopes rising gradually northward to the low range of the Height of Land, a plateau with low hills, not over 1500 feet elevation, which cuts it off from the northern country and forms the limit of commercial forest. This region, the bulk of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec – a belt of not exceeding 300 miles in width and about 1500 miles in length, altogether 300,000 square miles – with 93,000 square miles in the maritime provinces, around 250 million acres in all, represents, outside of British Columbia, the true forest region of Canada, and at the same time the centre of Canadian civilization.

Although the Cabot brothers discovered Cape Breton and Labrador in 1497 and 1500, the first settlement of Canadian territory was not made until 1541 by French colonists, after the first Captain-General of Canada, Jacques Cartier, the discoverer and explorer of the St. Lawrence (in 1534), had taken possession of the country for Francis I; but not much progress in colonizing was made until Champlain’s arrival in the first years of the next century. Quebec was founded as early as 1608, and Montreal in 1611, but Ottawa dates its first beginnings not farther back than 1800.

The northern country around Hudson’s Bay was, under the name of Rupert’s Land (after Prince Rupert, the head of the enterprise), undefined in limits, granted by Charles II, in 1670, to the Hudson’s Bay Company, a powerful fur-trading corporation which had not only a commercial monopoly but, except for occasional interference by the French, held absolute governmental sway over the country through 200 years, its jurisdiction at one time extending to the Pacific Coast.

Friction and warfare with the English resulted in the latter acquiring by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Newfoundland, and settling their rights on Hudson’s Bay. The final conquest of “New France” by the English ended French rule in 1763, but the French colonists remained peacefully, and their descendants form to-day, at least in Quebec, the predominating influence. Indeed, in 1774, by the so-called Quebec Act, the first permanent system of self government was established much on the lines of the French feudal system, and the French civil law was retained.

At first, under English rule, the territory, then including the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, formed one colony, but after the war of the Revolution, in 1791, the territory remaining English was divided into two separately governed provinces, Upper and Lower, or West and East Canada. They were re-united in 1840, and continued so until 1867 when the so-called Union or British North America Act effected the present organization of the Dominion of Canada, a federal union, comprising only the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. After various combinations and subdivisions all of the British Possessions in North America, except Newfoundland and its dependencies in Labrador, came into the union, and, in 1882, the union was completed with the then seven provinces (those mentioned with Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and British Columbia) and all the organized and unorganized territory.

In the same year, four territories, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Athabasca, in 1895 the territory of Ungava in Labrador, and in 1898 that of Yukon were organized, with a view of their eventual elevation into provinces, the relationships of the federation being quite similar to that of the states and territories in the United States.

In 1905, the Western territories were organized into two provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The government, although practically much like a republic and largely independent of the home country, is theoretically a limited monarchy, the king being represented by a Governor-General, appointed by the king, and a privy council selected by the governor. The latter also appoints (now 81) senators for life to form the upper house of the Parliament or legislative body, while the lower House of Commons is elected by the people. Besides this imperial government, each province has its own separate government with a lieutenant-governor, appointed by the Governor-General, and an elected legislature; this autonomy being somewhat similar to that of the states of the United States and the division of functions between federal and provincial governments being also similar.

Although the home government retains the veto power, the supreme jurisdiction and various other powers, and although apparently, by the appointment of officials, its influence is guarded, practically the party management as exercised in Great Britain prevails, and independence from imperial influence and from the home government is continually increasing. In regard to the crownlands, including forests, this division as well as this relationship becomes important. Each provincial government except those of the three middle provinces administers the crownlands within its boundaries in its own way, yet on similar lines, while the Dominion government controls only the lands located outside of the provinces together with those of the middle provinces and the so-called railway belt in British Columbia. These latter lands were mostly acquired by purchase from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Company relinquishing its territorial rights in 1868, and the transfer being completed in 1870 upon payment of £300,000.

1. Forest Conditions

The forest area has at various times and by various authorities been roughly estimated as between one and a quarter and over one and three quarter million square miles, which would make the forest per cent. at least over 32. 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 almost only in British Columbia and in the old provinces, the two forest regions separated, just as in the United States, by a 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 350,000 square miles or round 200 million acres would cover fully the commercially valuable forest land, although the wooded area of the provinces in which the commercial timber occurs is stated officially as around 450 million acres, 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 60 per cent. less commercial forest area than the United States, and about one-quarter of the mature timber of that country. It will be understood that all such statistics are merely rough estimates, the data being slim, and eked out by conjectures based on geographical conditions which predicate the character of the country. Most unreasonable speculations and calculations16 as to amount of timber standing and value have been made on impossible assumptions.

While by the change of standards and by local needs, forest areas may become commercially valuable which were not so considered before, and thereby the above figures may be eventually increased, from the standpoint of valuable lumber supply for the world trade, the above named area may be assumed to set the limit for the present.

A computation based on slender information has placed the country with open woodlands in the central region as exceeding 280,000 square miles. The Director of Forestry estimated that 150,000 square miles of this area might contain nearly 200 billion feet merchantable timber.

The southeastern territory south of the Height of Land was originally all densely wooded. From it a farm area of round 25 million acres has been cut out, less than 7 per cent. of the land area included. Especially the south-western half of Ontario, between the Great Lakes, which contains the most fertile land, is densely settled, as also the shores of the St. Lawrence. A large part of the remaining forest area is cut over and culled, especially for pine; the amount of White Pine remaining according to estimates made in 1895 would now be less than 20 billion feet. Extensive areas have been turned into semi-barrens by repeated fires.

The Statistician of the Dominion in his report made in that year comes to the conclusion that “the first quality pine has nearly disappeared” and that “we are within measurable distance of the time when, with the exception of spruce as to wood, and of British Columbia as to Provinces, Canada shall cease to be a wood exporting country.”

The composition in general is the same as that of the northern forest in the United States: hardwoods (birch, maple and elm prevailing) with conifers mixed, the latter, especially spruce, becoming occasionally pure. The nearly pure hardwood forest of the southern Ontario peninsula has been almost entirely supplanted by farms, and here, even for domestic fuel, coal, imported from the United States, is largely substituted for wood. Although White Pine, the most important staple is found in all parts of this forest region, the best and largest supplies are now confined to the region north of Georgian Bay. Unopened spruce and fir lands still abound especially in Quebec on the Gaspé peninsula and northward. Spruce forms also the largest share in the composition of the New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland forest, the pine in the first two provinces having practically been cut out. Extensive, almost pure Balsam Fir forest, fit for pulp wood, still covers the plateau of Cape Breton, while Prince Edward Island is to the extent of 60 per cent. cleared for agricultural use.

Much of this Eastern forest area is not only culled of its best timber, but burnt over, and thereby deteriorated in its composition, the inferior Balsam Fir appearing in largest number in the reproduction.

North of the Height of Land, in Ungava and westward, spruce continues to timber line, but, outside of narrow belts following the river valleys, only in open stand, branchy, and stunted, hardly fit even for pulp, for the most part with birch and aspen intermixed. This open spruce forest, interspersed among muskegs continues more or less to the northern tundra and across the continent to within a few miles of the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean, the White Spruce being the most northern species. In the interior, northern prairie belt, groves of aspen, dense and well developed, skirt the water courses and form an important wood supply.

The forests of British Columbia partake of the character of the Pacific forest of the United States, the Coast Range along the coast for about 200 miles being stocked with conifers of magnificent development, Douglas Fir, Giant Arborvitæ, Hemlock, Bull Pine and a few others, the Rocky Mountain range also of coniferous growth, pine and larch, but of inferior character, large areas being covered with Alpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) and Lodgepole Pine, important as soilcover and for local use in the mining districts, but lacking in commercial value.

If much of the forest area in the settled provinces is burnt over and damaged by forest fire, much more extensive destruction is wrought in this northern forest by fires sweeping annually over millions of acres unchecked, many of them said to be started by lightning. About 50 per cent. of this country is said to be fire-swept.

Among the large notable forest fires the great Miramichi fire in New Brunswick in 1825 destroyed more than 6,000 square miles in a few hours. In 1880 the loss by forest fires in the Ottawa valley alone was still estimated at $5,000,000 annually. In 1909, reports indicate over half a million acres burnt over in that year.

The river systems of Eastern Canada, with the mighty St. Lawrence permitting sea-going vessels to come up to Montreal, have been most potent factors in the development of the lumber industry and export trade, without the need of railroads. Yet although, as a consequence this trade was early developed to a relatively large figure, it has not grown at as rapid a rate as might have been expected, and to-day with an export in excess of imports of less than 40 million dollars is considerably below that of the United States.

The small export trade of earlier times, having been stimulated by exempting Canadian timber from paying duties in the home country, or at least allowing it a preferential tariff, had by 1820 grown to 15 million cubic feet, all squared timber, and sent to England. In 1830, it had crept up to only 20 million cubic feet, but by 1850, it amounted to over 50 million cubic feet, two-fifths of which was sawed material, the 2632 mills being reported by the Census (1851) as having cut 776 million feet B.M. By 1867, when the Dominion was formed, the total export of forest products had advanced in value to $18 million; the next decade, with a climax year in 1873 of $26 million, saw an increase to $20 million in the average, the proportion of sawn material being nearly three times that of hewn wood, and the entire cut of Ontario going to the United States. At that time it was computed that the waste of value in shipping square timber amounted for the province of Ontario alone still to over $350,000 annually. At present sawed lumber, deals, boards, planks, etc., form 70 per cent. of the total export.

In the last 20 years a steady increase in exports at an average rate of about 3 per cent. per annum is noted, the total in 1903 culminating at nearly $41 million, but in the following year sinking to 36.7 million. In 1910, the total export amounted to $53 million, against which an import of nearly $16 million is to be offset, nearly double what it was three years before. Adding wood manufactures, the net export must be increased by some $36 million. The bulk of the export goes, of course, to the United States. But, while exports of forest products thus increased absolutely, relatively to other exports they have considerably declined, i.e., the lumber industry has not grown proportionally to other developments, for while, in 1868, forest products formed 34 per cent. of the total export, in 1904 they represented only about half that figure.

The same conclusion, namely that the lumber business has not increased rapidly in the last 25 years, may be derived from the report of the Decennial Census. While, for 1890, the total cut amounted to over 5 billion feet and its value to nearly $80 million, in 1900, the cut or at least the Census report fell below 4 billion and its value to $53 million. In 1909, the total lumber cut was reported as 3.8 billion feet B. M. and its value $62.8 million.

A measure of the depletion of the great staple White Pine is found in the statement that from 1865 to 1893 the average size of pieces decreased by one-quarter to one-third, and that, in 1863, over 23 million cubic feet were exported from Quebec as against 1.5 million feet in 1904, while the price had more than quadrupled in that period. Spruce has here taken the place of pine, and Ontario is now the main producer of pine. Yet in 1909, the White Pine cut in amount almost equaled that of spruce, and in value exceeded it by 40 per cent. Spruce, and especially pulpwood, forms an ever increasing item in cut and export, export of pulpwood having increased sevenfold in the last decade, to nearly $2 million, and of woodpulp to over $4 million.

A notable economic improvement has taken place during the last ten or fifteen years in that the proportion of raw materials exported, especially logs and square timber, has decreased in favor of manufactures.

While originally the home country took the bulk of exports of forest products, the cut of Ontario has been always, duty or no duty, sent almost entirely to the United States. In the last six or eight years, the export to the United States has been doubled, amounting now to about half of the total export, and as the States return of its own forest products largely in the form of manufactures to the extent of about 6 million dollars worth, a balance of trade for the Canadian forest product of 12 million dollars is left.

2. Ownership

When the French took possession of the country, all the land belonged to the king, and could be held by others only under feudal tenure, i.e., as a gift under obligation of counter service. The whole country was placed as a fief under the rule of the Hundred Associates, a company which also exercised a trading and colonizing monopoly, but made no success, and was dissolved in 1663. It was then that Richelieu introduced the system of seigniorial tenure, the land being divided into portions of from 100 to 500 square miles, usually with a certain amount of river front, and given outright to younger noblemen, favorites of the court, and clerics, who were, however, obligated to subgrant to colonists, thereby becoming so many immigration agents. These not only treated their colonists as tenants, exacting rent and service, but exercised nearly absolute jurisdiction within their domains, the colonists becoming virtually serfs or retainers of the seigneurs. This condition continued until 1854, when an adjustment of rights was formulated by the Seigneurial Tenures Act, and the government aided the “habitans” to secure their freedom by indemnifying the seigneurs, or else by paying rent, which was done mostly.

Under English rule, the granting of lands, without, however, the seignorial rights, was continued. In 1784, such grants were made along the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte to veterans of the loyalist army, some 20,000, in lots of 200 acres for privates up to 5,000 acres for field officers. In 1791, every seventh section was ordered to be set aside as Clergy Reserves for the support of the Protestant Church, a measure which created much friction, and formed, especially in the Roman Catholic province of Quebec, a chief grievance in starting the Papineau rebellion of 1837. Some 3,300,000 acres were gradually withdrawn for this purpose, and as far as possible leased to secure an income. Some of these lands were sold after 1827, and finally, in 1853, a statute was passed to sell the remainder and turn over the proceeds to municipalities for educational purposes and local improvement.

Extensive grants and sales were made to lumbermen and speculators. In this manner, by the granting of 13,000 acres to an American, Philemon Wright, in 1800, the great lumber industry of Ottawa was started, and, in 1836, another American syndicate secured about a million acres of grants. Out of the 50 million acres granted in aid of railroad construction, some portion must also have been in timber. By all these methods as well as by small grants and sales to settlers a large area of uncertain extent has become private property.

In Nova Scotia, nearly the entire government domain has passed by grant and sale into private hands, some 6 million acres, one-half in small holdings. Of the lands remaining in the crown at least two-thirds is on barrens. Similarly, in Prince Edward Island, the 800 square miles of woodland remaining are almost wholly owned privately, the 14,000 acres of state land being, like most of the private property, stripped of its value.

In New Brunswick over 1.6 million acres, mostly woodland (containing over 10 billion feet) was granted to the railway company and another million acres or so is in other private possession; a liberal disposal of lands having been continued until 1883, when about 71⁄4 million acres of timber and waste land remained to the crown.

In Quebec some 6 million acres are estimated as privately owned, mostly in woodlots on farms. In Ontario the private woodland area of commercial character may be over 5 million acres.

Besides the large grants which were and still are probably to the greatest extent in timberlands, the farms in the various provinces, according to the Census of 1901, have from 22 to 57 per cent. in woodlots, or altogether probably in the neighborhood of 30 million acres.

The total area privately owned may then be placed at not to exceed, say 40 million acres, and the largest part of the forest area, is still crown lands, the government of the different provinces and the Dominion government in the territories and in the middle provinces administering them and deriving the revenue therefrom. This condition has prevailed since 1837, when the home government gave up its claim to land and revenues.

The provincial ownership extends over about 500,000 square miles. The Dominion government owns an area of 20,000 square miles in the railway belt of British Columbia, 20 miles on each side of the railway for 500 miles, which contains good timber, and some 722,000 square miles of land in the middle provinces which contains practically only timber suitable for local use.