Forest Investigations in Canada 519 



Composition of the Advisory Board 



In order to handle this work successfully and expeditiously, 

 and to accomplish the fundamental requirements previously desig- 

 nated, I conceive it to be essential that there be two main divi- 

 sions of the General Staff or Advisory Board. 



To insure a broad view of conditions throughout the country, 

 a rather large membership is essential, but to accomplish any 

 real results the responsibility of the Board must be centralized 

 in as few members as possible. I would, therefore, propose an 

 Advisory Board of from 10 to 15 members, with an Executive 

 Committee of three to five members, both to be appointed by 

 the Director of Forestry. The functions of the Advisory Board 

 shall be those previously mentioned, but any action taken by a 

 majority of the Executive Committee shall be considered the 

 action of the entire Advisory Board. The entire responsibility 

 for the activity of the Advisory Board will therefore lie with the 

 Executive Committee, which must be so constituted as to guar- 

 antee the carrying out of these duties." 



Work to be Systematized and Standardised 



It will, of course, be noted that the scheme as suggested is 

 partly a re-organization of certain existing offices of the Forestry 

 Branch and partly involves the establishment of new offices. 

 Two of the main subdivisions of the proposed office of Forest 

 Investigation are already in existence with both an office and a 

 field staff, and have done considerable work on Dominion lands. 

 It is proposed to bring these offices under the charge of a Chief 

 of Investigations, so that their work throughout the country 

 may be more thoroughly systematized and if possible standard- 

 ized in cooperation with other Forest Agencies, and also so that 

 their work may be brought in line with the results of such forest 

 research work as will be undertaken by the new office. This 

 research work will of necessity be confined at first to rather ele- 

 mentary forest investigations, such as the preparation of volume 

 tables, the study of silvical characteristics of important trees, the 

 study of forest types in various localities, the establishment of 

 permanent sample plots and the study of forest fire influences, 

 methods of protection and methods of brush disposal. There is 

 also a considerable amount of standardization work that might 



