Address in Praise of Founders

"U.N.B. Forestry Department Graduates are now the Principal Executives in Charge of One-Half of the Dominion Forest Supply A.V.S. Pulling, Professor of Forestry at U.N.B., in His Address in Praise of the Founders, Traces the Development of Forestry in Various Countries ..." The Daily Gleaner (12 May 1921): 9.

Each year it is our custom to express our appreciation and praise of the Founders of the University--those farseeing men who dedicated this institution to the causes of learning and progress.

Frequently we can only praise those who have long since finished their work, but fortunately today, since the importance of forestry is to be my subject, we can consider not only the original Founders of this University, but can directly congratulate the Founders of our Forestry Department, most of whom are not only still in their prime, but are with us today. They perhaps did not realize that within fifteen years of its beginning the 44 graduates of the University Forestry Department would be the principal executives on one-half of the Dominion's forest supply!

It is not, however, my purpose to dwell on the well known success of our Founders and graduates, but rather to consider forestry in general, and in particular to emphasize that its purpose is to protect Canadian wood industries in which nearly two hundred and fifty million dollars is invested; to assist wise utilization at home, and to increase the export value of wood materials that are our  most desired product, and that in 1920 reached an already stupendous value of two hundred and four million dollars.

Perhaps we should attempt to define Forestry and trace its development. Although a very old profession, it did not develop a high stage of perfection until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and only during the last 25 years has material progress been made on this continent. Forestry is, of course, an agricultural profession, its basic science being Silviculture, which bears the same relation to the forest that agriculture does to the open field. It is, however, so closely related to engineering in all new countries, that foresters are frequently miscalled forest engineers. We are in the midst of the engineering stage today, largely because of the tremendous amount of survey taking up the most of the forester's attention, rather than the growing and marketing of timber, which should be his principal task.

Forestry is always connected with the right use of land and is primarily the growing of repeated crops of timber on lands unsuited for farming. The right use of land means the use that, century after century will produce the most money from the soil. Practical utility and sustained yield are among the highest of forestry ideals. A few impractical dreamers have considered only the aesthetic standpoint, but practical foresters, admitting the beauty and sentiment of their work, think fundamentally in terms of dollars and cents. No country begins real forestry practice until it pays, and frequently not until driven to it by a scarcity of timber. But, fortunately, we have begun the work while we are still a great wood exporting country. In the sections of Europe where the best woods practice now exists, no improved methods were perfected until timber famine was faced. Germany has been the leader in intensive silviculture, closely followed by Switzerland, Denmark, France, Austria and Sweden. Of these countries, the conditions of Sweden more closely resemble Canada than do the others.

As an example of foreign development the state of Prussia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, on State lands, received a net annual income of about twenty-five cents an acre. One hundred years later the net annual income was six dollars.

New Brunswick, although in the front rank of forestry, does not receive a net income of twenty-five cents an acre per annum. Assuming that there are five million acres of Crown Land that are capable of producing merchantable forest growth, and the net income is one million dollars, the income per acre would be but twenty cents. But New Brunswick lands is as good or better than most European forest land, and an income of six dollars per acre would net this province thirty million dollars per annum! A great sum of money, and a great task to produce it, but a task that can and will be accomplished, unless history for the first time fails to repeat.

It is comforting to note that the records of every European country note the same damages from overcutting, pasturing, and fire before the woods were put on a sound business basis, and nowhere are there large revenues obtained until the country has begun to import timber. But Canada probably never can import timber. No countries of the world except Canada, the United States and parts of northern Europe are exporting construction timber. The failure of Canada and the United States to export timber would probably mean timber famine for the world. Unless conditions materially change the United States will not be exporting much timber after 1950, and probably Canada will be by that time the centre of the world's construction timber supply.

The task then of Canadian Foresters is to maintain and increase the timber cut, without interfering with agriculture, without decreasing the acreage of our woodlands any more than is necessary, and with ruining our lumbermen who, contrary to certain popular notions, are the backbone of our possibilities in technical forestry.

How can this great work be done? We still know very little. There are some things that we can do, but there are many that are beyond our present knowledge. There are many things that we are doing badly, but to change the method would be to leap from the uncomfortably warm frying pan into the immeasurably hotter fire. Time, money, painstaking study and tireless labor will be necessary.

We might briefly consider some of the greatest problems.

The fire menace is too well known to need elaboration, but we might say that all reforestation, and all technical forestry may be worthless unless the fire problem is solved. In some sections of Europe, fire is so unimportant that it is never mentioned in foresters' reports. Our own progress although slow, is unquestionably sure.

The dangers from injurious insects and fungi, so far have received very little consideration, but without care these factors may do more damage than unrestricted fire. Some thirty years ago the larch saw fly killed nearly all of our tamarack. The while pine weevil is with us, and the white pine blister rust may appear any day, so that this tree that once made us famous, is probably doomed to commercial extinction. A little to the south, the chestnut, the most valuable tie and pole timber of the continent, has been exterminated by a blight imported from Japan. But recently our balsam fir and spruce have been so ravaged by the spruce bud moth that the damage is inconceivable unless one has been on the ground, to see for himself. But again, in some places in Europe pathological damage is scarcely worth mentioning. These damages can be, have been and will be eliminated.

As one devastator passes, however, another comes. As New Brunswick doubles and trebles in population, the problem of grazing animals will become acute in the administration of forests, especially of farm woodlots. In many sections of the eastern United States, cattle are doing more damage to the forest than fire, axe and disease combined. In the far south, damage from hogs is so great that certain states will have to resort to stringent legislation, or their forests will be hopelessly ruined. When many animals graze, timber will not grow. Only in specialized cases will the forest thrive under grazing. And it is a difficult problem to control. The best European practice has only partially solved the grazing problem. Time does not permit its lengthy discussion, but it is an established fact that if cattle, hogs, sheep or goats are grazing on the land it cannot grow timber.

Another problem, applying particularly to New Brunswick foresters is the perpetuation of the supply of game and fish. It is well known that New Brunswick has the best game, the best guides, camps, and transportation of any place on the Western Continent. The management of this game is a delicate problem, with which the foresters should be especially trained to cope. The game fish are also important, but simpler to manage, because of the ease of artificial propagation, if assisted by the prohibition of stream pollution and proper fishways around dams.

The problems we have just mentioned, although showing many difficulties, are by no means impossible to solve. Others are much harder. The large area of Crown Land simplifies the situation, for public land is easier to manage, due to the long time investments and deferred returns that make forestry a safe practice for the State, but questionable for the private individual. There are many embarrassments in the administration of public lands that will only be eliminated through the greatest care. For example, it is known that only the yearly increment on Crown Lands should be cut. Has the public ever realized what a task it is for the Provincial Foresters to determine how much timber grows on this seven and a half million acres, more or less, of Crown Land in New Brunswick? And if the yearly increment was known, would it be practicable to restrict the cut to exactly this amount? Lumbering is a precarious calling, and the successful operator cuts heavily when he can, lightly when he must.

And how can land, long denuded, be brought back to timber, when the cost of planting at compound interest until the timber crop is ripe will be a greater cost than the value of the timber? Obviously natural reproduction should be used, but what of the hundreds of thousands of acres that are burned bare and will not naturally come back? Must they remain unproductive when perfectly capable of producing fine timber? France has answered this question by spending millions of dollars in planting dunes and other sand wastes, or denuded mountains where heavy floods were a menace to life and property. They found a way, because they had to. We must find some way to reforest our own waste land. Waste land tends to beget more waste land, and the famine and sterility of China and Asia Minor are terrible examples of deforestation and its tragic results.

And will we employ the proper methods in preventing the depletion of our natural resources? The earliest records I have of applying diameter limit to logging is for the year 1488, four years before the discovery of America. This diameter limit law has been out of date in most of Europe for hundreds of years. We know that this is a bad regulation, but we use it, for there is no other way of regulating the timber cut. We understand that a way is being devised in Quebec to do away with diameter limit cutting, but this does not seem possible in New Brunswick at present.

Many other countries have gone through these same transitory periods. In 1647 Sweden passed a useless law that provided for the planting of two trees for each one that was cut. We hear good people today proposing such legislation, but no law for the planting of one tree or ten trees for each one cut would be effective. Each square mile, or even each twenty five acre lot may be a problem in itself, and not by inflexible laws but by flexible intelligence will the conservation problem be solved.

And further, can the Forestry Profession regulate some of the economic and industrial difficulties in connection with forest products? For example, the pulp-wood situation is quite acute. In New Brunswick today there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of cords of poplar, of little value for lumber, but of great importance for paper. There is not to my knowledge a mill in the Province that can manufacture poplar pulp. Much poplar is chipped out in the round, more rots on the stump. How can capital be induced to invest in this type of manufacturing?

To further consider the pulp situation, I believe there are six pulp mills, some of them very large, in New Brunswick. But not one pound of paper that I know of is made within our border. With increased industry, that is always followed by greater wealth, more attention can be paid to forestry and other economic sciences. More and better men will be developed to carry on the work as the economic demand increases.

These then are some of the tasks to which we were assigned by our Founders. Forestry is old as a profession, but new in this country, and beset with all the difficulties that come to any calling during its formative period. The aim of Canadian foresters is the continued improvement of the Dominion's business in timber products, and, backed by well trained foresters and an enthusiastic public, the future of Forestry is bright.