AMERICAN FORESTRY 



115 



CANADIAN DEPARTMENT 



BY ELLWOOD WILSON 



PRESIDENT, CANADIAN SOCIETY OF FOREST ENGINEERS 



J 



HE Annual Conference on Fire Pro- 

 tection, under the auspices of the 

 Quebec Forest Protective Association will 

 be held in the Windsor Hotel, Montreal, 

 on the 28th of January. The special topic 

 to be discussed will be railway fires that 

 is, the number of fires set by railroads and 

 the best course to be pursued in eliminating 

 this hazard. The reports of the St. 

 Maurice Forest Protective Association for 

 the past season show 60 per cent of the 

 fires to have been set by railroads, most 

 of them by the Canadian Government 

 owned lines, and practically all the fires 

 were set by a few defective engines which 

 scattered sparks day after day. There is 

 absolutely no excuse for such conditions 

 and drastic action must be taken. 



An effort will be made to make this 

 meeting a little different from the usual 

 routine. There will be only one paper 

 read and the meeting will then be thrown 

 open for general discussion on a list of 

 topics to be issued with the programs so 

 that everyone can come prepared. Speeches 

 will be limited to five minutes. 



On the 29th the Meeting of the Wood- 

 lands Association of the Pulp and Paper 

 Association will be held and the program 

 will be the same as that of the Confer- 

 ence, only one paper and then general dis- 

 cussion along the lines of the following 

 topics : airplane mapping and timber recon- 

 naissance ; slash disposal with reports on 

 the experiments carried out by the Lauren- 

 tide, Bathurst and Abitibi Companies ; the 

 use of tractors in woods operations ; pulp- 

 wood scaling and the possible further elimi- 

 nation of waste in logging. These meet- 

 ings will be thoroughly practical and it is 

 hoped that many American lumbermen, 

 paper men and foresters will join us. 



The writer has just made a trip to 

 Florida, and from Washington south to 

 southern Florida the engines were setting 

 fire to the woods so that the evil is not 

 confined to Florida. Along the line of 

 the Atlantic Coast Line ground fires were 

 burning almost everywhere and often young 

 timber was being entirely killed. 



Perhaps the Canadian National Rail- 

 ways may eventually find it cheaper to 

 fix their engines than to pay damages. 

 Leave is being asked of the Crown to sue 

 the Railways Department in two cases for 

 $143,000 and $185,000, respectively, and two 

 other suits will probably be brought. 



There will be a large convention of the 

 Canadian Forestry Association held in 

 Toronto sometime in February to discuss 

 the situation in Ontario. The new Minister 

 is making a thorough investigation of the 

 whole question and much progress is hoped 

 for. Better fire protection is needed and 

 the entire elimination of political patron- 

 age. The placing of the administration of 

 the forest lands of the Province under 

 the Forestry Branch is also urgently 

 needed. 



This same situation is also to be met 

 in the Dominion Forest lands and the 

 Hon. Arthur Meighen is turning his atten- 

 tion to this situation and making a study 

 of the situation. He is a man of vision 

 and is planning great improvements in the 

 administration of the water powers and 

 forest reserves and it is to be hoped that 

 he will consult men who understand the 

 situation and are not tainted by party 

 politics. He is also looking into the sub- 

 ject of making maps of the great unsur- 

 veyed areas in the West by aerial photog- 

 raphy and some experiments may be tried 

 out during the coming summer. 



In 1918 the Union Government of South 

 Africa voted fifty thousand pounds sterling 

 for reforestation, which will be under- 

 taken at once. In the last normal year, 

 1913, the imports amounted to 17,500,000 

 million cubic feet, 90 per cent of which 

 was coniferous, worth one million two 

 hundred fifty thousand pounds sterling; 

 and the Chief Conservator of Forests esti- 

 mates that even if all the possible forest 

 resources are ever developed they are never 

 likely to be able to provide more than 

 five per cent of the country's requirements. 

 Assuming, on a very conservative estimate, 

 that an acre of plantation will yield 100 

 cubic feet of timber per annum, it will 

 take 350,000 acres to produce the probable 

 requirements of the country in fifty years 

 time. At present there are only 70,000 

 acres of Government plantations in the 

 Union, and of these 20,000 acres are for 

 special purposes, as, for instance, 7,000 acres 

 in the Transkei to provide hut wattles 

 for the natives. The above shows the need 

 for prompt action. The work at present 

 is being confined chiefly to mountain land 

 which is of little value for any other pur- 

 pose, but the question of accessibility for 

 easy distribution has not been overlooked. 

 Plantations have been started which will 

 total 92,275 acres, of which 3,933 acres 

 will be planted yearly and the total cost 



will be 49,125. The different works 

 will take from five to fifty years to com- 

 plete at an average cost per acre of slightly 

 less than 13. 



An interesting comparison is drawn be- 

 tween the revenue from the indigenous 

 forests and from the plantations. That 

 from the latter is nearly double that from 

 the former, and more than double if the 

 railway plantation returns are taken into 

 account. The yield of timber and firewood 

 from the planted forests is also much great- 

 er than from the natural forests. From 

 the Western Conservancy, a planted area 

 800,000 cubic feet worth 11,000 was cut 

 during the year ; whereas, from the Mid- 

 land Conservancy, the most heavily for- 

 ested of the natural areas in the Union, the 

 yield was only 394,000 cubic feet worth 

 6,000. 



As the world's consumption of timber 

 is increasing while the forested areas are 

 decreasing, it is of national importance for 

 South Africa to supply a large part of its 

 own timber requirements and make itself 

 as independent as possible of foreign 

 supplies. 



The Journal of the Spanish Forestry 

 Assoication, Los Amigos del Arbol, gives 

 some extracts from American Forestry 

 and pays it some nice compliments. 



The Spanish River Pulp and Paper Com- 

 pany at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, has 

 started a night school with a good attend- 

 ance. 



The New Brunswick Forest Service will 

 commence experimental planting next 

 spring with a ten acre tract. This has 

 been clean cut and will probably be planted 

 with spruce. 



The white spruce failed to seed all 

 through eastern Canada last year and there 

 is practically no seed to be had. The crop 

 of Norway spruce in Scandinavia was very 

 poor last season and the supply will be 

 short and prices high next year. 



The Forestry School of the University of 

 Toronto is asking prominent foresters and 

 lumbermen to address their students on 

 the qualities which go to make a good 

 forester. This should be helpful to the 

 students, if the men who speak really 

 know to what their own success is due. 



The Research Department of the Lauren- 

 tide Company is experimenting with the 

 cooking of jack pine with the sulphite 

 process. 



