Report of the Department of Lands and Forests for 1950 No. 5 



DIVISION OF RESEARCH 



The Division operated during the year with the following staff: 



Permanent and Temporary 



Biologists 2 Stenographers and Vari-typer Operator 5 



Chemists 3 Others 4 



Draftsmen 3 — 



Foresters .___ 6 Total 31 



Librarian ._„ _._.. 1 



Mechanical Engineer 1 Part Time Employees 



Motor Mechanics _ 2 Students: Forestry 20 



Research Station, Property Biology S3 



Superintendent _ 1 Laborers and others 5 



Soils Specialists 2 — 



Statistician 1 Total 78 



A start was made in 1948 on a regional research staff by appointing Mr. N. F. 

 Lyon as a full time research assistant to the Regional Forester at Port Arthur. This 

 regional scheme of research will be expanded gradually as staff and funds permit. 



The program for 1948 included work under the following headings: 



Electrical — mechanical Mensuration Sylviculture Tree Breeding 



Entomology Pathology Smelter Fumes Wildlife 



Fisheries — Great Lakes, Inland Research Station Soils Miscellaneous 

 Lakes, Southern Ontario 



Electrical-Mechanical Studies 



This work is under the direction of M. H. Baker. The first project of the 

 year was the manufacture of a production model of an infra-red cone drying machine 

 and installing it in the tree seed extraction plant at Angus. The manufacture of the 

 prototype machine was mentioned in the report of 1947. The machine at Angus is 

 now in use and has proved satisfactory. 



An improved machine was made for seeding by aircraft. The original gravity 

 feed was replaced by a positive drive operated from the electrical system of the aero- 

 plane or a separate battery. A wide range of speeds is possible to suit different sizes 

 of seeds and air speeds and almost any desired quantity of se;d can be sown on a given 

 area with one pass of the aircraft. 



Following the ^lississagi-Chapleau fires, a meeting of Regional Foresters, the 

 Chief of the Research Division, the Director of the Ontario Research Council, and 

 a consulting engineer, was held at Dorset to decide what was the most pressing need 

 in mechanical equipment for fire suppression. Two suggestions were made, one was 

 that tipping of bush tools, especially grub hoes with hard materials such as "stellite" 

 or "carboloy" and the second that manufacture of a small crawler tractor, or mechani- 

 cal pack horse, would be a great help. The first would increase the effectiveness of the 

 tools and reduce time loss by repeated sharpening, or by breakage, and the second 

 would enable an effective load to be taken to the fire by the first suppression crew. 

 The men would arrive fresh for fire fighting and not exhausted from carrying equip- 

 ment. The tractor would be equipped with a power take-off for operating a pump, 

 generator, or trench digger. 



These two projects were started and pulaski tools were tipped with stellite and 

 carboloy and tested. The stellite and carboloy proved far more resistant than ordinary 

 steel; the stellite tip. though not as hard as the carboloy. is more feasible economically. 



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