British Columbia Has 697 Billion Feet Of Standins Timber-Double The Estimates of 1913

(Reprinted from

One of the proudest possessions of C. D. O'rchard, British Columbia's chief forester and deputy minister of forests, is an untitled, cloth-bound book ten inches square containing several hundred loose leaf sheets of typewritten paper.

"I'm doubtful whether any provincial or state forester anywhere can boast of having a book like this," said Mr. Orchard showing his treasure to The LUMBERMAN. "It represents a lot of work and a lot of time. and every bit of it was well worth while."

The book sums up the forest inventory that has been under way in British Columbia for several years. By merely flipping through the pages Dr. Orchard can see how much timber there is, to the cubic foot, in any one of the many sections into which the province has been divided for survey purposes.

The monumental task of ascertaining just how much mercantable timber there is in this vast province of 366,000 square miles is now up-to-date, for the first time, and when anyone asks Dr. Orchard how much wood the forests of British Columbia represent he no longer has to guess at a figure; he just picks up his lititle book, and there it is for all t'o see,

One of the nice things about Dr. Orchard's little book is that, unlike most people's bank books, it shows that there is rrore in the account than had been suspected. In other words, after more than 40 years of pretty intensive logging, there is more commercial timber in the forests of British Columbia than was estimated when the provincial forest service was first organized.

Back in 1913, H. R. MacMillan, now chairman of the board of one of the world's great forest utilization companies, who was then British Columbia's first chief forester, was writing in his first annual report to the government that British Columbia possessed about 100 million acres of forest land containing not less than 300 billion board feet of timber of all species.

Forty years later, Dr. Orchard is able to produce from his little loose-leaf book the cheerful information that British Columbia actually has 116.2 billion cubic feet of timber of all species, or roughly 697 billion board feet, considerably more than double Mr. MacMillan's estimate.

But of course Dr. Orchard is quick to point out that this isn't quite as lovely as it looks. In the days when Mr. MacMillan was chief forester, a lot of timber that is now regarded as merchantable was classed as valueless or wasn't taken into calculation at all. For instance, those early surveys ignored hemlock altogether because there was no market for hernlock, so why include it ?

When the early survey was made, vast stands of timber now being utilized profitably were classed as inaccessible and therefore not counted.

Another point in favor of the present-day figures is that

the Lumbermon)

they are far more accurate than could have been attempted a few years ago. Under the direction of Assistant Chief Forester F. S. McKinnon and H. M. Pogue, in charge of surveys and inventory, an efficient organization of over 200 men has been working through all parts of the forested province gathering data on extent of timber resources by species, and the ground tallies have been checked and double-checked by aerial photography. "The airplane has revolutionized the business of making a forest inventory," says Dr, Orchard.

The record shows that British Columbia now has 116,293,941,000 cubic feet of merchantable timber ,growing on 41,889,273 acres.

But none of these figures are final. They never will be, Dr. Orchard insists. And to him there is nothing more meaningless than a five-year or a ten-year or any other definite time limit plan for making a forest survey. Such a survey should be a continuing one, brought up to date every succeeding year.

So Dr. Orchard hopes that when the present five-year program has run its course, the governments concerned will decide to keep the process in operation indefinitely. The federal government now matches British Columbia dollar for dollar on forest inventory expenditure up to a certain limit, and the federal contribution is based on the province's average expenditure on that account for the three preceding years. In 1952-53 a total of $929,000 was spent ; just what rvill be spent in 1953-54 has yet to be determined.

The four main policy matters introduced by the British Columbia government lately have been: 1. A one per cent tax on licensed and leased timber ; 2. Ten per cent tax on profits of logging companies over $25,000 a year; 3. Compulsory restocking of logged over lands; 4. Establishment of the cubic scale of measurement.

The first two are purely financial matters ar-rd Dr. Orchard's department is not directly concerned with them. As for compulsory reforestation, Dr. O'rchard feels that it is not unreasonable. Stated in simple terms, the operator is held responsible for the satisfactory re-seeding of the area from which he has harvested the standing timber.

As for cubic measurement, Dr. Orchard denies recently published reports that the government has backed down on application of the cubic scale to industry as a whole. The cubic scale is mandatory on all government timber sales and on all timber harvested under forest management license, but industry complained about the universal establishment of the cubic scale on the ground that it would be costly and cause unnecessary confusion in view'of the fact that board scale has beetr so widely adopted. So the government agreed to hold general use of the cubic scale in abeyance, but that decision was rear:hed

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