1604 



Canadian Forcslrij Journal, March, I91H 



A Forester's Impression of England 



Mr. .las. R. Dickson, formerly of 

 the Dominion Forestry Branch, Ot- 

 tawa, and now with the Forestry 

 Corps in Eni>land in a letter to the 

 Director of Forestry says that he has 

 been extremely busy sizing up and 

 rerorling on timber and sawmill 

 operations which the British Board of 

 Trade have given the Forestry Corps 

 the option of taking oyer and carrying 

 through. Mr. Dickson goes on to 

 say: 



"Have been engaged so far in the 

 ?ovth of England and fmd the work 

 verv interesting and congenial. I 

 think our good friend Ellwood Wilson 

 would have taken a fit had he seen the 

 pair of calipers they sent me out with 

 to make a very careful check valua- 

 tion survey upon the result of which 

 ar other forester's fate depended, as 

 his estimate had been seriously cjues- 

 tioned. In the first place it was a 

 hi'ge awkward affair, made by a 

 blacksmith, and all of iron — so just 

 imagine the weight! And it was made 

 for a left-handed man, with even at 

 that all the diameter figures put on 

 wrong way round, so that our left- 

 handed Hercules was required to read 

 them upside down. Furthermore the 

 long caliper arms were tipped with 

 ^4 inch right angled nibs which were 

 forever catching in the rough bark, 

 and even when they were placed just 

 right the diameter measurement was 

 being taken at such a distance irom 

 the scale, and there was necessarily 

 so much "play" in the moveable arm 

 that one could only hope to be some- 

 where within an inch of the "correct 

 answer." With the unaided eye I can 

 estimate to within a half-inch error, 

 so that after all one's work with them 

 these English calipers were, you may 

 say, twice as bad as nothing. 



"The small local sawmills in English 

 woods, cutting 3 to 6 M.B.M.^ per 

 day, turn out a fair quality of stuff 

 but cut rather a pathetic figure beside 

 one of our big Canadian mills. When 

 they get an extra big log at one of 

 those little mills it's funny to see "all 

 hands and the cook" piped to shove 



on the carriage and so help the poor 

 fellow at the windlass win through. 



.In Even-aged $tand 

 Most of the Scotch pine I've been 

 working in was planted just after the 

 Napoleonic wars and is therefore 

 about 100 years old. What a dif- 

 ference between one of these perfectly 

 pure even-aged stands, with often not 

 a piece of debris or bit of underbrush 

 to be seen anywhere on the mossy 

 floor, and roads or "rides" as they 

 cam them, intersecting everywhere: 

 and, say a typical corner in the Riding 

 or Duck Mountains with weed trees 

 hogging most of the ground and a 

 mass of debris and underbrush so 

 dense that a mile an hour is good going 

 even usmg both hands to save your 

 eyes and a little Latin to save your 

 temper. 



"In a word one can pick up in the 

 old land some splendid ideas both on 

 how to do things and how not to do 

 them. In the latter regard one of the 



4. — 



Dry Matches 



After all day in a 

 boat, rainstorm 

 or wet snow. Ask 

 your dealer for 



If he can't supply you, we will send prepaid 



for his name and 50 cents. Dry matches 



may save your life. 



MARBLE ARMS MFG. Co. 



Dept. 5160 Oladstone, Mich,, U.S.A. 



