Canadian Forestry Journal, September, 1919 



349 



practically of several short pieces of insulated 

 wire, sealed at the outer end, radiating from a 

 common centre, and buried a few mches beneath 

 the surface of the ground in the neighborhood 

 of the tree." 



In view of the work now bemg done by 

 aeroplanes m patrollmg certam forest districts, 

 it is interesting to note that "Radio-telephonic 

 messages from airplanes were readily received 

 and transferred thence to the wire system . . . 

 and finally received at any point desired," and 

 also that "Radio-telephonic transmission through 

 the tree antenna was received by another tree 

 antenna and automatically returned to the 

 sender on a wire system, thus making the 

 complete circuit." 



Of the marvellous achievements of the 

 wireless telephone I hope to have the pleasure 

 of writing in subsequent articles for the readers 

 of this journal. It is unfortunate that the re- 

 peated publication in the newspapers of far- 

 fetched radio "records" should have sickened 

 a considerable section of the public till many 

 of them have reached the point of taking truth 

 and falsehood alike with a "grain of salt." This 

 fact, coupled possibly with a growing inclina- 

 tion among men living in a wonderful age to 

 accept things as they come, and to regard 

 nothing new with half the astonishment which 

 greeted the appearance of the first steamboat, 

 may account for the little attention paid to 

 the announcement of President Wilson's radio- 

 telephone conversation from the "George Wash- 

 ington" in Brest harbor with Secretary Daniels 

 in his office at the Capitol! The distance was 

 about 3,000 miles, and the voice was carried 

 by land wires to the coast and thence by the 

 aether to the "George Washington" truly a 

 wonderful thing, if we men of the twentieth 

 century will only think back twenty years or 

 so and imagine what such an announcement 

 would have meant then! 



With a rapid and efficient means of com- 

 munication by radio-telegraph or radio-'phone 

 between selected points in our forest regions 

 and with patrolling aeroplanes, Canada's annual 

 fire-waste will be tremendously reduced. With 

 no wireless stations in the forests, enabling 

 aeroplanes to report without coming down or 

 dropping messages likely to go astray, the avia- 

 tor observer is going to work under a great 

 disadvantage. 



There is little doubt in my mind that wireless 

 will ultimately come into general use in the 

 forest. No line wire system can offer the 



same service as will be provided by Radio which 

 permits communication with land, sea and air 

 either by telegraphic signal or by transmission 

 of the human voice. It will be interesting to 

 see if further experiments with the "tree aerial" 

 will lead to its adoption for forest wireless sta- 

 tions, and surely it will be strikingly appropriate 

 if, for their own protection, we employ the trees 

 themselves! 



A GREAT TESTIMONIAL TO PRAIRIE 

 PLANTING. 



Until this last two years I have always felt 

 that while tree plantations about the buildings 

 were most highly desirable, they also had their 

 drawbacks. While there is nothing that pro- 

 tects the farm home like a grove of trees and 

 gives it a homelike appearance, the trees take 

 a lot of moisture and it is almost impossible to 

 grow a garden close to trees or inside a small 

 windbreak. Further, in the spring after a heavy 

 snowfall the trees hold the snow and frequently 

 keep the ground near them wet very late in 

 the spring. A row of trees along the road 

 sometimes makes the road impassable for weeks. 



Last spring, however, and again this spring, 

 I have come to put a higher value on the trees 

 on my farm. I have a windbreak running 

 south from the road for about 20 rods. It was 

 planted ten years ago and is 14 to 20 feet high. 

 A field just east of this windbreak was summer- 

 fallowed and seeded to wheat in 1918. It ran 

 south the full half-mile and was 60 rods wide. 

 Over half this field at the south end was com- 

 pletely drifted out. Where the shelter belt pro- 

 tected the field from the west and northwest 

 winds I never had a better crop and it checked 

 the force of the wind right across the 60-acre 

 field. 



This year I noted the same effect on a neigh- 

 bor's farm. On my own farm the field was 

 spring plowed and none of it drifted badly. I 

 have come to the conclusion that the policy of 

 planting a system of windbreaks is the only 

 permanent measure of controlling soil drifting. 

 In planting, I would suggest that they be 

 planted in rows half a mile apart running north 

 and south. Nearly all the high winds that do 

 the damage are almost directly due west winds. 

 I realize that such a plan must be started on a 

 small scale .but it would soon grow to be the 

 greatest tree plantation ever undertaken. G. 

 H. Scott, in a letter in the Farmer's Advocate. 



