18 



Canadian Forestry Journal, February 1918. 



have definite things to accomplish. 

 The reading of the various articles 

 in this issue will show some of these 

 things, and it is the intention to pre- 

 sent the leading issues in concrete 

 form in the Journal from issue to 

 issue. The views of those interested 

 in forestry on subjects coming partic- 

 ularly within their ken will be wel- 

 comed. 



Under the auspices of the Touring 

 Club of France an international for- 

 est congress will be held in Paris, 

 France, June 16-20 inclusive. The 

 Government of France is assisting in 

 this work and is inviting representa- 

 tives from different countries of the 

 world. Two of the leading topics 

 will be, first, co-operation in forestry 

 which will take in the question of re- 

 lation to agriculture, relation to credit 

 societies, banks, etc. ; and, second, the 

 creation of an international forestry 

 bureau similar to the International 

 Agricultural Institute which has its 

 headquarters at Rome. 



WANT NATURAL RESOURCES. 



At the opening of the Alberta Leg- 

 islature the speech from the throne 

 concluded with the regret that 'the 

 promises of the federal authorities in 

 regard to the handing over of their 

 natural resources to the prairie pro- 

 vinces has not yet been implemented 

 in the slightest degree. Although re- 

 quests for conferences on this ques- 

 tion have been made, no time has yet 

 been fixed by the federal authorities 

 and I bring thi smatter to your at- 

 tention for such action as you may 

 desire to bring in the interests of the 

 province of Alberta.' 



TEN THOUSAND A DAY. 



Our Dumh Animals, 



In Louisiana alone it is reported 

 that during the short season 10,000 

 robins a day are killed by brutal men 

 and boys. They are shot, clubbed to 



death in the trees where they roost 

 at night in great numbers, slaughter- 

 ed by the wholesale to be sold for a 

 few cents apiece. And yet the robin 

 and its nestlings are perfect gor- 

 mandizers when it comes to making 

 a meal of bugs and caterpillars, the 

 fledglings eating one and two fifths 

 times their own weight of worms and 

 insects each day. No wonder men 

 speak of many of these little birds as 

 'worth their weight in gold.' How 

 magnificent the economic \nsdom of 

 the state that allows their destruction 

 at the hands of men who sell them 

 for less than an ounce of copper! 



WIRELESS FOR FIRES. 



Lumbermen of Spokane are seri- 

 ously considering the adoption of the 

 wireless telegraph as an effective aid 

 in fighting fires in the great forests 

 of the Pacific Northwest. On the 

 success of a test to be made next 

 spring by the ]\Iarconi company in 

 one of the forests near Spokane hangs 

 the future of wireless as a means of 

 fighting fire. 



Special apparatus will be placed on 

 the trails used by the forest rangers, 

 who will carry emergency aerials to 

 string between two high trees at any 

 point in the woods. By this means it 

 is proposed to have reported to a 

 central station any incipient blazes, so 

 that fire-fighting squads may be rush- 

 ed to the scene in time to prevent the 

 fire from gaining headway. 



The weekly iei)ort of the Department of 

 Trade and Commerce of Canada recently 

 contained a paragraph from the Birming- 

 ham, England, representative of the Depart- 

 ment in regard to sugar manufactured from 

 sawdust. The correspondent stated how Mr. 

 A. Zimmerman described the process. In its 

 natural state, he said, wood contained no 

 sugar, but when sawdust was digested with 

 a weak sulphurous acid solution under a 

 pressure of six to seven atmospheres as 

 much as twenty-five per cent, of the ma- 

 terial was converted into sugar. This, he 

 said, made a valuable feeding stuff for 

 horses and cattle. He gave instances show- 

 ing that the food had been tried with good 

 success in different parts of England. 



