Our Native Timbers.

A forestry expert declares that our indigenous timber supply will be “exhausted commercially” about the year 1965. This seems a helpless kind of attitude. There is no sound reason why our forests should even be exhausted as a source of timber supply if a really scientific system of sylviculture were adopted which would devote at least as much attention to the splendid native forest as it does to the planting of exotic trees. Nothing in the world of timber can ever altogether take the place of the trees native to a country; no artificial forest can be so useful or so beautiful as the original varied woodland. But nothing what-ever has been done to regenerate and extend page 51 the indigenous forests of our country. All efforts have been concentrated on planting more pinus insignis and other quick-growing foreign trees, mostly American. Our own forests respond quickly to regenerative measures, and the principal trees are of quicker growth than the principal timber trees of Europe, including the oak. Had the excellent counsel of that greatest of foresters, the late Sir David Hutchins, been followed out the improved condition of our forest lands would already be apparent. It is not too late to put his advice into practice, and so ensure a perpetual supply of the finest timbers any country can have.