Canadian Forestry Magazine, October, ig2o. 



471 



Practical Training for Foresters 



by "Dr. C. D. Howe, Jlding T)ean, 

 Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto. 



Three quarters of total time of at- 

 tendance is spent in field and 

 laboratory. 



As has been pointed out in preceding 

 articles, the students in all forestry schools 

 gain practical experience in the bush, 

 forest nursery or mill during- the sum- 

 iner holidays and at the same time earn 

 money for the partial payment of their 

 school expenses. The total time thus 

 employed during the three summer vaca- 

 tions of the course amounts to ten or 

 twelve months. Thus quite or more 

 tlian one quarter of the time during the 

 course is actually given to woods work. 

 While the school is in session the stu- 

 dents' time is about equally divided be- 

 tween attendance upon classroom lec- 

 tures and upon laboratory or field work. 

 It will be seen, therefore, that during 

 the entire four years of the course the 

 students spend three quarters or more 

 of their time in practical work in some 

 form. 



/// the Practice Camps 



The statement in the paragraph above 

 jn"ludes the work in addition to the time 

 spent in the practice camp, since the 

 students of all the forestry schools spend 

 from one to three months in the forest 

 under the c|irect supervision of their 

 instructors. At this time they put into 

 practice as far as possible the things 

 they have learned in their textbooks. 

 In the first place, they usually lay off the 

 boundaries of their practice area and di- 

 vide it into working sections. The stu- 

 dents construct a map showing twenty- 

 five or fifty or one huniircd foot con- 

 tour intervals. This, of course, discloses 

 the toposraphy and drainage and thus 

 indicates where the hauling roads and 

 camps may be conveniently located. The 

 next procedure is to make a forest type 

 map which locates, for example, the 

 pure stands of hardwootls and softwoods 



and the mixed stands of these species. 

 It also shows the distribution of the bar- 

 rens, bums, swales and muskegs if pre- 

 bent. The students then estimate the 

 tim.ber on the tract in terms of board 

 feet or cords for each commercial 

 species. This is usually done by estab- 

 lishing a base line and measuring the 

 trees in parallel stripes at definite inter- 

 vals apart and perpendicular to the base 

 line. The strips on which the trees are 

 measured are run methodically on the 

 tract, so that the final estimate of the 

 stands is a fair average. The students, 

 however, obtain practice in various other 

 methods of estimating as employed in the 

 different parts of the country. 

 Planning the Future 

 All this data is placed upon the map of 

 the tract so that one may see clearly the 

 topography antl drainage, the location 

 of the logging roads and camjis. the 

 nature of the forest types and stands 

 and the amount of material that may be 

 cut in the form of saw logs, pulpwood 

 or cordwood. These are about all the 

 facts with regard to the condition of an 

 I'rea that a lumberman nectls for the 

 purpose of logging, but the forester must 

 enter into the condition of the future 

 productiveness of the area, for it is his 

 bfisiness to maintain the continuity of 

 the crop. In order to fiml out the condi- 

 tioi! of the tract trom this standpoint, 

 ho must do two thin.iJs: ho nuist »Ioter- 

 mino the amount of material not yet 

 of niorchantablo size and having done 

 this ho nuist dotormino how fast it is 

 growing, or in other wtMuls. how much 

 wood in boan! fool in addition to esii- 

 inating the amount of material now mer- 

 chantable on the practice area. The for- 

 ostrv stutionts bv moans of the ilata 



