CANADIAN DEPARTMENT 



755 



Canadian Department 



By Ellwood Wilson 

 Secretary Canadian Society of Forest lingineers 



Director of Forestry R. H. Campbell 

 lias just been visiting the Laurentide Com- 

 pany, Limited, plantations at Grand'mere. 

 There are about 400 acres of plantations 

 all the way from one year to four years 

 old. These consist of Norway Spruce and 

 Scotch Pine in mixture ; Scotch Pine ; 

 White Pine, and Norway Pine in mixture ; 

 and Norway Spruce in pure stand. The 

 Norway Spruce has also been planted in 

 the open under the shelter of White Birch 

 and Poplar, and also underplanted on 

 land which has been logged over. The 

 plantations are doing very well — the loss 

 in Norway Spruce being less than one per 

 cent, and all of the plantations are now 

 beginning to show up in first class shape. 

 A visit was also paid to a lumbering opera- 

 tion on land which had been heavily cut 

 over for soft wood, the remaining stand 

 consisting of large Hemlock and hard wood, 

 mostly Wliite and Yellow Birch, and Maple, 

 and small Spruce, Balsam and Cedar. Prac- 

 tically all of the hardwood has been re- 

 moved so as to give an opportunity for the 

 soft wood reproduction to take place, and, 

 where this has failed, planting operations 

 will be begun next Spring. Fire lines have 

 Iieen cut, and all the brush cut from them, 

 and in cases operations have been burnt, and 

 this has left the ground in good shape, and 

 is a good example of what can be done along 

 these lines. Mr. Campbell expressed him- 

 self as well pleased with the Laurentide 

 Company's operations. 



The Canadian Forestry Association has 

 taken up with the governments of Mani- 

 toba, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick. 

 the question of introducing legislation look- 

 ing to making " fire permits " compulsory 

 throughout these provinces. The response 

 met with has been favorable, and we hope 

 that the legislation will be passed at the 

 coming session. Tliis will practically 

 make a " Dominion-Wide Permit System " 

 for protection against forest fires, and will 

 be a long step toward the conservation of 

 Canada's natural resources. 



The following letter has been received 

 from Mr. A. H. Unwin who is in the British 

 Forestry Service in Nigeria, Africa. Mr. 

 LTnwin was formerly in the Dominion For- 

 estry Service, and is a member of the Cana- 

 dian Society of Forest Engineers. The let- 

 ter is as follows : " In Nigeria I am in 

 charge of the Working Plans Division, but 

 since I came back this time I have been 

 transferred to the British Sphere of the 

 Cameroons (late German Colony) to report 

 on the plantations and forests as well as 

 the Agricultural resources. Needless to 

 say the Southern Forests, such as I have 

 seen of them, are grand with plenty of 

 Mahogany of various kinds, besides Ebony. 



rubber and bullet wood, also ironwood. 

 Most of th(^ land is really covered with 

 forest, except for the small clearings of the 

 natives here and there. The Germans had 

 not developedthetimber industry in this part 

 very much ; in fact, compared to Nigeria, 

 they had been very slow in taking up Fores- 

 try and only had six men in all, compared to 

 Nigeria's sixteen at the same date. They 

 had, however, done a certain amount of 

 planting at the District Stations, chiefly with 

 Teak, rubber Cocoa, Indian blackwood, as 

 well as what they called German Steamer. 

 1 cannot quite make out what they meant 

 by this. They had planned to plant in the 

 drier regions away from the Coast, but lit- 

 tle had been done before the war. Now we 

 will hope they will not be allowed to return. 

 Several large rivers for floating logs are 

 found both North and South, notably the 

 Cross River and the Mungo, as well as 

 four other rather smaller ones, the Akway- 

 efe, Ndian, Moko and Meme. On the 

 whole too it is quite a mountainous country, 

 the Cameroon itself being '13,000 feet high, 

 and then there are several ranges, such as 

 the Rumpi, 4000 odd, on which there are 

 good stands of timber. The chief difficulty 

 in dealing with tracts is that there are so 

 many different species on a given unit of 

 area that it is almost impossible to make it 

 jiay with any great length of haul to a 

 waterway. I have found as many as li 

 species of trees in a valuation survey two 

 chains wide and three miles long, and that 

 is not a large number. Tlie known species 

 of timber trees regardless of shrub trees 

 in this part is about 300, quite apart from 

 the unnamed trees. It is like a vast arbori- 

 cnltural collection, all mixed up without 

 labels, and overgrown with creepers and 

 undergrowth into the bargain." 



The Dominion Royal Commission which 

 was appointed in 1914 to look into the rela- 

 tions with Great Britain and her Colonies, 

 and to examine into their natural resources, 

 discontinued its sittings last year on account 

 of the war, but has resumed them this year. 

 These sittings have been held in the cities 

 of the West and the Commission has just 

 reached this part of Canada, where the 

 meetings were held in Toronto, Montreal, 

 pnd Quebec. At Toronto Dr. B. E. Fernow. 

 Dean of the Faculty of Forestry at the 

 University of Toronto, advocated federal 

 jurisdiction over the licenses for cutting 

 timber in Canada. At present, he said, each 

 province regulated its own license system, 

 and as a result there were wide diflferences 

 between the laws of the various provinces. 

 For instance, in Ontario a license could cut, 

 without limit, whereas in Quebec the opera- 

 tions were subject to a number of important 

 restrictions. Dr. Fernow commended the 



work of the Forest Branch of the Depart- 

 ment of the Interior in organizing fire pro- 

 tection on the Dominion Forest Reserves, 

 and drew attention to the fact that Ontario 

 had fallen far behind in its fire protection 

 policy. Ontario was badly in need of a 

 system of protection similar to that of Brit- 

 ish Columbia, which included lookout tow- 

 ers, telephones, trails and organized fire 

 fighting forces. He said that Canada's total 

 stand of timber was between 500,000,000,000 

 and 600,000,000,000 feet, and that the cut in 

 any one year had never exceeded 5,000,- 

 000,000 feet, so that the supply might be con- 

 sidered inexhaustible or at least reproduci- 

 ble, by merely keeping fire out of the forests. 



In Montreal forestry was spoken for by 

 Mr. Ellwood Wilson of the Laurentide 

 Company, Limited. Mr. Wilson rather 

 startled the Commission by stating that if 

 strict measures of conservation and refor- 

 estation were not adopted immediately on 

 this continent within the next sixty-five 

 years the pulp supply of Canada would 

 practically have disappeared. It was also 

 stated that three things were essential to 

 the protection of the industry in this coun- 

 try ; one was the adoption of a scientific 

 scheme of reforestation ; another a proper 

 system of forest fire protection, such as 

 had been adopted in British Columbia and 

 on the land under the control of the Lau- 

 rentide interests on the Ottawa and St. 

 Maurice Rivers, and also a system that 

 would do away with the dangerous disposal 

 of waste that now prevails in the forests 

 throughout Canada. It was also stated 

 that during the past thirty-five years thirty 

 per cent of the wood pulp of Canada has 

 been burned over and rendered useless for 

 generations to come. Since 1908 when fire 

 protection was first introduced on a scien- 

 tific basis the decrease in waste has been 

 most marked. 



In Quebec Mr. G. C. Piche, Forester 

 to the Quebec Government, gave his testi- 

 mony about Quebec conditions. 



This Commission is composed of repre- 

 sentatives from England, Ireland, Australia, 

 New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, and 

 is amassing a large amount of useful and 

 interesting information which will be a 

 great help to the British Empire in mobiliz- 

 ing their resources for a campaign for the 

 increase of trade after the war. 



For fire protection and prevention in Do- 

 minion Parks the Government has adopted 

 portable fire engines which have remark- 

 able capacity. Mr. J. B. Harkin, Com- 

 missioner of the Dominion Parks Branch of 

 the Department of the Interior, Ottawa, in 

 cooperation with Mr. J. C. Johnston of the 

 Railway Commission Fire Branch, has 

 adopted an engine which was completed 

 last spring. Its weight, stripped, is 118 

 pounds, and, equipped, with solid oak base, 

 etc., for work, 143 pounds. Tlie engine is 

 rated six horse power. It delivers twenty 

 gallons of water a minute through 1500 feet 

 of hose. 



