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Canadian Lumber Production

A. S. Nicholson, well known Canadian timber authority, in a recent address to a Canadian lumber association estimated that the production of lumber in the Dominion this year will be slightly more than four and one-half billion feet. He made the following estimates by district: British Columbia Coast area, 1,600,000,000 feet; Southern British Columbia, 150,000,000 feet; Northern British Columbia, 200,000,000 feet; Nova Scotia, 400,000,000 feet; New Brunswick, 350,000,000 feet; Quebec, 900,000,000 feet; Ontario, 550,000,000 feet; the Prairie provinces, 350,000,000 feet; total 4,500,000,000 feet. Labor shortage is the big problem there as everywhere else.

JAP LOGGERS ALLOWED TO WORK IN B. C.

The Government of Canada recently issued an order permitting the employment of Japanese loggers in the lumber woods. Reports from British Columbia state that some of these Japs have returned to work. They can be employed only on crown lands in non-defense areas in the interior. The plan was to release loggers from these areas so they could go to the Coast to work, in the areas where Japs are barred, and where such restrictions have made the labor situation extremely acute.

LACK OF GLOVES THREA"ENS LOG SHORTAGE

This is in British Columbia, Canada. One of the vagaries of the war is the report from Vancouver, that a shortage of heavy leather for making the very heavy protective gloves without which many of the men who work in the logging woods of that area could not possibly give service, threatens a cut-down of log production. For in those woods they log with heavy steel rigging, and heavy wire rope, and chains, and hooks, and various other materials and equipment that can only be handled by well protected hands. We find the B. C. Loggers Association recently petitioning the Canadian Government to release restrictions on horsehide. and cowhide to enable the glove makers to get the sort of materidl they must have to keep the loggers-in action. ft seems that such material was heavily restricted last October.

VICTORIA, B. C., CELEBRATES ANNIVERSARY

The beautiful city of Victoria, British Columbia, has been celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year. It is also the hundredth anniversary of the opening of one of the world's greatest timber stands, that of Vancouver Island. James Douglas, factor of the Hudson Bay Company, picked the site and began cutting into those forests for room for town, fort, and farms, in 1843. The first sawmill was built in 1846. It cut 2,000 feet daily-less than one Fir log. The first steam mill was built in 1852. It is estimated that 7L per cent of all the remaining timber in British Columbia is on Vancouver Island. The first trees were cut from thiS stand by Capt. Cook, famous navigator and explorer, in 1778, for masts and spars for his ships.

Lumber In South Africa

A commentator in South Africa states that a little Douglas Fir from Canada, a little Short Leaf Yellow Pine from the Gulf is all the outside luhrber supply that part of the world is getting. Most of the current stocks of lumber in Johannesburg, for instance, is locally grown lumber, mostly pines. Up to January first, 1943, lumber locally produced could be sold and used without restriction of any kind, but effective that date 80 per cent of all lumber stocks were frozen, regardless of origin, and merchants were only allowed to sell 2O per cent without a permit from the Government. It is estimated that South African Government forests will produce 23,000,000 cubic feet of lumber this year, about doubling last year's output. Before the war lumber imports into South Africa averaged 27W,000 cubic feet (324,000,000 board feet) per year. Imports this year will be close to the vanishing point. Private building other than on farms, has practically stopped in South Africa.

Australian Lumber

All lumber purchases for Australia from the North American Continent are made through the Commonwealth of Australia War Supplies Procurement at Washington, D. C., headed by L, R. McGregor, Australian Trade Commissioner to the United States. In Australia, as in the United States and Great Britain, crating materials are the predominating lumber items used, fully one-third of all the lumber consumed in Australia now being for crating and boxing and shipping. Reports state that small quantities of Fir have been reaching both Australia and New Zealand from British Columbia, mostly in the shape of square timbers for re-sawing. The fact that they have increased the number of lumber dry kilns operating in Australia to 700 shows the effort that is being made down under for the production of local lumber to replace the large amounts formerly imported. The Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is doing much work investigating the properties of all the native grown woods for war purposes. They particularly search for wood for airplane construc'tion. Many domestic iirdustries formerly using imported woods only, have now developed excellent sources of supply right at home. For instance, they are making their own match wood. Australia has worked in concert with New Zealand in helping each other with their wood needs.

Lumber In New Zealand

fn January, 1942,the Government of New Zealand,declared logging and lumbering to be an essential industry, thereby giving the lumber industry of that Commonwealth some needed protection against losing their crews to the armed forces. In 1942, the lumber production of New Zealand was 310, 000,000 board feet, a small falling ofi from the previous year due to man shortage. During the year 1941, New Zealand imported 18,000,000 feet of -hardwood lumber from Australia. By Government order all the Insignia Pine (Pinus radiata) consumed in New Zealand is used exclusively for the manufacture of wooden containers, and the wooden container business was declared an essential industry.

British West Indies Lumber

Reports from British West Indies show that the only lumber or wood supplies imported so far this year has been some British Columbia Red Cedar Shingles and some box shook. This was railed to Gulf ports, and re-shipped. Reports from Jamaica state that because of the lack of import lumber, domestic hardwoods have come into great demand, and their production has been considerably increased.

Lumber Conditions In Britain

According to the Timber Trades Journal, published in London, shortage of manpower and the taking of key men from the lumber industry is one of the main handicaps of lumber productinon in England and Scotland. Many American lumbermen will probably be surprised to know that those Islands have a lumber industry, bu! according to British publications they have a very large and growing one, and hugely important to the war effort. With their normal supply of lumber of many kinds from the United States, Canada, Africa, and the Western Pacific territories shut ofr, Britain has had to turn her eyes homeward, and take up accelerated,production of lumber and wood items from her own forests. What those forests amount to, we do not know. What the species are, is rather vague. But that there are forests, both privately and Governmentally owned, which are supplying the war effort with large quantities of lumber and wood items, is a known fact. As a matter of fact, England cut away a great deal of her home forests during World 'War One, and as a result of the lessons then learned, she planted very extensive Government forests in the years immediately following that war, and so has been growing her present war needs for twenty years past.

British Columbia, Canada, is shipping lumber continually to Great Britain. How much is a military secret. But the journals state that it is mostly shipped by rail to Eastern Canadian ports, and then across the Atlantic, although some is loaded on ships in British Columbia waters.

"'W'ood," published in London, quotes Gerald Lenanton, Director of Home Grown Timber Production, as stating that in 1942, seventy-five per cent of the wood consumed in Great Britain was home g'rown, and that he plans to increase it to ninety per cent. This contrasts with prewar

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