Abstract
A FOREST SEBVICE BULLETIN, No. 88, has been issued under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, Canada (Ottawa, Printer to H.M. the King, 11936) entitled “Forest and Forest Industries of the Prairie Provinces” by J. D. B. Harrison of the Division of Forest Economics. The Prairie Provinces occupy a part of the interior continental plain of North America and have thus many characteristics which differentiate them from other parts of the Dominion. A National Forest Inventory was commenced jointly in 1929 by the Dominion and provincial forest authorities but had to be retarded owing to the general economic situation; in spite of this it has proved possible to collect a large amount of information on the subject of these Prairie Provinces and this the author summarizes in the present bulletin. A brief but comprehensive review of the principal factors affecting the forests, together with a description of the forests themselves, is given. The dominance of agriculture as the principal industry of the region is emphasized, and questions of population and of communications dealt with, in order to place the forest resources in their proper economic perspective. Sufficient historical material is included, in the appropriate chapters, to explain the course of events leading up to the present situation. The bulletin is written by an economic research officer from the purely economic point of view. It is, however, none the less disquieting to observe that the forests of a country are still mainly regarded from the point of view of what they can be made to yield in produce to man, whilst the protection they offer to mankind as a whole, and to certain of the natural resources of the country, are so little appreciated until almost irretrievable damage by over-exploit at ion has been done.
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Forests in the Canadian Prairie Provinces. Nature 138, 1091 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1381091b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1381091b0