With the Forest Engineers* 



(Contributed by the Ganadian Society of Forest Engineers.) 



The Secretary announces the election of 

 the followinfj new members: — 



Active. — Whiting Alden, E. H. Finlay- 

 son, S. S. Sadler. 



Associate. — L. R. Andrews, F. G. Edgar, 

 R. M. Brown, il. A. Grainger, R. G. Lewis, 

 B. R. Morton, J. W. Ottestad, W. L. 

 Scandrett, L. C. Tilt, C. McFayden. 



Ottawa Forestry Club. 



At a meeting held at the offices of the 

 Forestry Branch on January 21st, the 

 forest engineers of Ottawa formally 

 organized the Ottawa Forestry Club, and 

 elected the following officers: — 



President, R. H. Campbell. 



Vice-president, Clyde Leavitt. 



Sec.-Treas., R. G. Lewis. 



The Club is intended to bring the mem- 

 bers into closer and better acquaintance 

 with one another, and to aid in the study 

 and discussion of forestry problems. The 

 exact nature of its relation to the Cana- 

 dian Society of Forest Engineers has not 

 been formally settled, but it will be con- 

 sidered by the members as practically a 

 branch of the Society. 



The membership is not to be confined to 

 professional foresters, but a class of mem- 

 bers, for whom the name of ' local asso- 

 ciates ' has been suggested, w'ill be 

 admitted, consisting of those who, though 

 without the regular forestry training, 

 have some direct interest in forestry 

 questions. The office of president of the 

 Club, however, is restricted to members 

 of the Canadian Society of Forest Engi- 

 neers. Local associates, however, have all 

 the other privileges of the Club, except 

 that of voting on business directlv con- 

 cerning the C. S. F. E. 



Meetings will be held at least once a 

 month, from October to April (inclusive), 

 and otherwise as determined on by the 

 committee of management (i.e, the officers 

 of the Club). The meetings will frequently 

 take the form made so familiar by the 

 Canadian Club gatherings, viz., a luncheon 

 followed by a speech, or paper, or the 

 discussion of some topic stated beforehand. 



The finances will be managed by an 

 assessment system. 



Owing to the crowded state of the 

 Canadian Forestry Journal's columns this 

 month, a number of items have had to be 

 held over till the Februarv issue. 



THE SPREADING OF THE BLUFFS. 



Bij John Leggat, Foxicarren, Man. 



As the writer has lived for a number 

 of years among the blufYs of Northwestern 

 Manitoba, it might be interesting to your 

 readers on the great treeless prairies to hear 

 something of how Nature strives to re- 

 forest these districts when prairie fires are 

 held under control. Northwestern Manitolia 

 comprii-es the Riding Mountains and the 

 country which lies between the mountains 

 and the Assiniboine river to the south. The 

 mountains are low hills of about two or three 

 hundred feet in height and covered with 

 spruce and poplar with numerous small 

 lakes and hay swamps in the valleys. The 

 Little Saskatchewan, Bird Tail and Shell 

 Rivers, which are tributaries of the Assini- 

 boine, take their rise in the mountains and 

 flow southward. This tract of country be- 

 tween the mountains and the Assiniboine 

 river is now all dotted over with poplar 

 bluffs or groves, many of which have grown 

 up since these lands were homesteaded and 

 {)rairie fires held under better control; es- 

 j)ecially is this so of the odd numbered sec- 

 tions which were vacant for a number of 

 years. 



The reason why we find the poplar and 

 willow spreading over the prairie is that the 

 seed-biul comes on the tree in May, a little 

 ahead of the leaf, and by the end of the 

 month, when the leaf is formed, the seed- 

 bulbs burst, and the little seeds which are 

 imbedded among the woolly down contain- 

 ed in the seedbuds are carried across the 

 prairie with the breeze like the thistle. In 

 this natural way many districts of the 

 prairie have become reforested and partly 

 wooded. Along the main line of the C.P.R., 

 between Medicine Hat and Calgary, young 

 poplars were observed which had taken 

 root in the moist soil of the railway 

 ditches, the seeds of which would probably 

 be carried from the bush along the banks 

 of the Bow River a few miles to the south. 



When we find that nature has provided 

 the seeds of the poplar to spread over the 

 prairie like the thistle, it must be in har- 

 mony with Nature for the farmer to re- 

 forest these fertile prairies, which no doubt 

 have been denuded of trees and tree growth 

 prevented by the prairie fires which must 

 have swept the country before the advent 

 of the settlers. The fact of coal underlying 

 nuich of these prairies is an indication, we 

 believe, that the country was at one time 



13 



