154 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1913 



DOMINION FORESTRY BRANCH. 



Notes of Work and Workers. 



The reconnaissance surveys are now 

 nearly all complete and the students in 

 charge are preparing to return to the Uni- 

 versities to complete their course in For- 

 estry. The forest surveyor must be a man 

 of parts for many unforseen difficulties 

 have to be met and over come in penetrat- 

 ing the tangled tree-growth and brule of 

 the muskegs and mountains of Western 

 Canada. Mr. Doucet, in charge of a party 

 near Smoky River, writes: 'A forester 

 needs to be here, besides all other profes- 

 sional titles, a real bushman, an all-man 

 and a jumper.' C. H. Morse, who crossed 

 the outer mountain ranges to explore the 

 hinter lands of the Rockies in Northern 

 Alberta, had great difficulty with the 

 snow in the passes, and on one occasion 

 while returning to camp, the party was 

 caught in a canyon by a blizzard and were 

 forced to spend the night there; an experi- 

 ence one seldom gets the opportunity of 

 repeating. 



* * « 



Mr. Lionel Stevenson has completed an 

 examination and soil-analysis of the sand 

 lands temporarily reserved on the Sas- 

 katchewan prairies by the Dominion Gov- 

 ernment, and with the exception of the 

 area around Good Spirit Lake, has found 

 them unsuited for agriculture. H6 also re- 

 commends that the strip of rough hill land 

 bordering on the Saskatchewan River be 

 set apart for forestry purposes, as the thin 

 soil and porous gravel subsoil make agri- 

 culture impracticable, while if tillage is 

 permitted, erosion will result and naviga- 

 tion be impeded in the river by the forma- 

 tion of bars and islands. • 



Owing to the increasing efficiency of the 

 fire protective patrol on the timber areas 

 of the Dominion Government in Western 

 Canada, the fire-loss this year is probably 

 the smallest ever recorded. It is the in- 

 tention of the Forestry Branch to prepare 

 statistics on forest fire losses in Canada in 

 1912. 



• • • 



There are now twenty-seven technically 

 trained foresters in the permanent employ 

 of the l^ominion Forestry Branch. 



The Forest Nursery Station at Indian 

 Head has already this season distributed 

 nearly two and three-quarter million trees 

 to prairie farmers, making a total of 

 twenty-three million trees distributed up 

 to date. The demand has so increased 

 that the Forestry Branch found it neces- 

 sary to establish a branch nursery near 

 Saskatoon which will have seedlings ready 

 for distribution next spring. 



FOREST PRODUCTS LABORA- 

 TORY. 



Mr. A. G. Mclntyre, who is in 

 charge of the Dominion Government 

 Forest Products Laboratory at Mc- 

 Gill University has been visiting the 

 United States Forest Products La- 

 boratory at Madison, Wisconsin. He 

 reports a satisfactory and profitable 

 visit. This laboratory and its sub- 

 sidiary laboratories were established 

 in 1910 at a large cost, $100,000 hav- 

 ing been spent on work on ground 

 wood problems alone. The two great 

 achievements to the credit of this in- 

 stitution are the adaptation of the 

 sulphate process to the southern 

 pines and in mechanical pulp. Mr. 

 Mclntyre is back in Canada and be- 

 ginning work in his new office. 



AFFORESTATION IN BRITAIN. 



In an article on 'Afforestation in the 

 United Kingdom' in Science Pro{jresf<, it is 

 shown that only 3,071,047 acres of land in 

 the United Kingdom are in forests or 4 

 per cent, of the total area, or .07 acre per 

 capita. In only one European country is 

 the percentage as low, namely Portugal, 

 but the area per capita here is larger. 

 Even Hollamd has 7 per cent, of her area 

 in woodland, while France has 18 per 

 cent., Germany 26 per cent., Russia 37 per 

 cent., and Sweden 48 per cent. Finland 

 leads the European nations with 63 per 

 cent. Thus it is that practically all of the 

 timber used in England must be imported 

 and the imports of hewn and sawn timber 

 in 1909 amounted to 140,000,000. 



ANTICOSTI ISLAND. 



Henri Menier, the French chocolate 

 manufacturer who died recently, was 

 chiefly known to Canadians because of his 

 purchase of the Island of Anticostj in 1895 

 for $125,000. The island which lies in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence is 135 miles long 

 and 40 miles wide. Mr. Menier spent large 

 sums of money in developing the island 

 and in recent years a large amount of pulp- 

 wood has been produced which has been 

 shipped to Ontario mills. 



