138 



Canadian Forestry Journal, September-October, 1912 



OTIS STAPLES. 



A sad circumstance in connection 

 with the Convention at Victoria was 

 the absence therefrom of one who 

 otherwise would have been one of its 

 most enthusiastic and active partici- 

 pants, Mr. Otis Staples, of Wycliffe, 

 B.C., whose untimely and sudden 

 death early in August deeply affected 

 the lumbering community. ^Ir. Sta- 

 ples was fishing about twenty miles 

 from home, when in casting the fly 

 the hook caught in his left eye. The 

 hook baffled Mr. Staples' efforts to 

 extricate it, and as no one else in his 

 party was able to run his motor car he 

 was forced to drive the car home 

 while suffering excruciating agony. 

 He was then hurried to Cranbrook, 

 where the hook was extracted. He 

 was sent to Spokane Hospital, but in 

 spite of everything that could be done, 

 died after a week's suffering. His 

 remai]is were taken for interment to 

 Stillwater, Minn., his old home. 



Mr. Staples was a native of New 

 Brunswick, where his successful ca- 

 reer is regarded with great pride. 

 Starting out to seek his fortune in 

 the lumber business, he went first to 

 Michigan and then to Minnesota, 

 where he spent the greater part of his 

 working life, building up an immense 

 business and becoming one of the lead- 

 ing lumbermen of the state. Witli 

 the decrease of the timber in Minne- 

 sota he acquired interests in the Pa- 

 cific coast states and later in British 

 Columbia, where he made his home at 

 a village which he created and named 

 Wycliffe. Mr. Staples, who leaves a 

 grown-up family to carry on his work, 

 was keenly interested in all lumber- 

 men's organizations, and his loss will 

 be felt on both sides of the interna- 

 tional boundary. 



As showing a growing intercut in forestry 

 it may be noted that at a recent meeting 

 of the Woman's Institute at Embro, Ont., 

 Miss Effie Koss read a paper written by Mr. 

 James G. Ross, C.E., of Montreal, showing 

 the present status of forestry in Canada, 

 and urging that greatly increased work for 

 taking care of our forests be inaugurated 

 by both provincial and dominion govern- 

 ments. The paper was published at length 

 in the Emhro Courier. 



During 1911 the nurseries of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Forestry Department produced ap- 

 proximately 2,"000,OU0 seedlings. With the 

 exception of 50,000 seedlings which were 

 furnished to private individuals all the: e 

 were planted on state reserves. In the same 

 period the state provided 32,713 acres of 

 land which were added to the state re- 

 serves. The department of the work having 

 to do with campers and others securing 

 health and recreation in the state forest 

 reserves is rapidly increasing. According 

 to the permits issued it is estimated that 

 at least 10,000 people spent vacations on 

 the reserves. This is an increase of about 

 2,500 over last year. 



I have seen many places in Indiana where 

 great damage will result to the future un- 

 less an enlightened system of forestry is 

 employed. We owe it to ourselves, and par- 

 ticularly to those who shall come after us, 

 to do our share to preserve all of the valu- 

 alile resources of the state. We owe it to 

 the state itself to make good the waste 

 places and preserve her natural wealth, sul)- 

 jeet to our reasonable needs, for future gen- 

 erations. — • Former (U.S.) Vice-Presiiieut 

 Fairbanks. 



Dr. Stanley Mackenzie, Principal of Dal- 

 housie College, Halifax, in lecturing before 

 the Canadian Club in Ottawa, made a strong 

 plea for a government laboratory to conduct 

 exhaustive experiments in regard to the pro- 

 jjerties of the various Canadian woods to dis- 

 cover how they could be used to the greatest 

 advantage. This laboratory would also con- 

 duct experiments to find the best methods 

 of preserving woods. In this way a much 

 Avider range of usefulness would be given 

 these woods, and many of the inferior kinds 

 would be so improved by preservatives that 

 they could be used for railway ties, fence 

 posts, telegraph poles and cross-arms, and 

 the life of the timbers in these exposed 

 situations would be greater than that of the 

 lietter timbers not so treated. 



New York has added another nursery to 

 its list of State forest activities. It has 

 put under cultivation at Geysers, some two 

 miles from Saratoga Springs, about six 

 acres in charge of F. A. Gaylord, with M. 

 D. Steele as local superintendent. Of the 

 1,400,000 seedlings transplanted, 1,100,000 

 were white pine, 250,000 Scotch pine, and 

 50,000 tamarack. 



