Current Literature 301 



Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway have been much 

 more successful and worked much more harmoniously with the 

 representatives of the Board than have some of the other lines. 



Interesting features of this portion of the report are a sample 

 letter of instructions in full to a large railway corporation 

 specifying the patrols that are to be established, their equip- 

 ment, etc., and a discussion of the velocipede versus the power 

 speeder as a means of track patrol. 



The summary of fires reported in 1913 shows 709, of which 

 365 were known to be caused by the trains and 131 reported as 

 cause unknown. The rest were due to miscellaneous causes or 

 the cause is not reported. Total damage outside the 600-foot 

 strip is placed at $40,587. In 1914, 1346 fires occurred; 904 

 caused by railways ; 227 cause unknown ; the rest due to miscel- 

 laneous causes classified in the report. The damage outside the 

 protection strip is placed at $433,442. 



Part II contains the reports of the Committee on Forests of 

 the Commission of Conservation for 1913 and 1914. These out- 

 line the progress of the investigative work undertaken by the 

 Commission, the most important of which is the inventory of 

 Canadian forest resources which the Commission has undertaken 

 to make. Both reports repeat the recommendation made pre- 

 viously, that the officers of the Dominion Forestry Branch be 

 placed under the Civil Service Commission. 



Part III is devoted to a discussion of brush disposal. It is 

 entirely made up of reports on the status of brush disposal in 

 the various provinces by forest officials and by extracts from 

 State Foresters reports, or special articles on the situation in 

 various states near the international boundary. On the whole, 

 brush disposal has not progressed far in Canada. The Dominion 

 Forestry Branch leads in its work on some of the Forest 

 Reserves, but here the natural and economic conditions are unus- 

 ually favorable. British Columbia has done some good work 

 along this line under adverse conditions. In the rest of Canada, 

 practically nothing is done to remove this menace. 



Parts IV and V are by Dr. C. D. Howe. The first is a 

 discussion of The Effect of Repeated Forest Fires upon the 

 Reproduction of Commercial Species in Peterborough County, 

 Ontario. It is a record of a detailed examination made on some 



