With the Forest Engineers. 



Domiuion Forest Branch Notes. 



Mr. J. A. Doucet, Forest As^-istant, who 

 has been engaged for the past year in gath- 

 ering statistics in the province of Quebec, 

 left on April 8 to take up his duties in 

 charge of the survey party which is to make 

 a re^■onnai^sance survey in the Peace River 

 country. His headquarters will lie Spirit 

 Rivt-r Settlement, via Edson, Alberta. 



Mr. l>oucet will be assisted by Mr. R. I). 

 MaidmiaJd. who after finishing his work in 

 conncitiuii with the traverse party whiih 

 operateil in the Clearwater Reser\-? during 

 the season of 1914, spent the winter at Head 

 Office assisting in completing the report and 

 maps of that survey. 



Mr. George S. Smith, who has been work- 

 ing at Head Office in connection with the 

 grazing policy of the Forestry Branch, left 

 Ottawa on April 10 to take up his duties 

 as Forest Assistant in the Big River and 

 Sturgeon Forest Reserves, Saskatchewan. 

 His headquarters will likelv be Big River, 

 Sask. 



Mr. W. X. Millar, Assistant Professor at 

 the Toronto Forest School, and formerly 

 Inspector of the Alberta Division will dur- 

 ing the summer visit forest reserves in the 

 West with the object of gaining data to 

 assist in perfecting the organization and in 

 ilevelojiing scientific investigation of tim- 

 ber growth in the prairie provinces. 



Dr. B. E. Fernow, Dean of the Toronto 

 Forest School, will spend sonie time in the 

 West this summer anil will visit some of 

 the reserves with a view of gaining a better 

 knowledge of the conditions on the reserves, 

 where a number of the graduates of the 

 forest school are now employeil. 



Toronto Foresters' Club Dinner. 



Owing to a mistake no mention was made 

 at the time of the successful annual iliuner 

 of the Foresters' Club of the Faculty of 

 Forestry of the University of Toronto. The 

 chair was occupied bv Mr. C. H. Morse, 

 I'rcMdent. and there was a good number of 

 guests besides a full attendance of meni- 

 l»ers of the Club. 



The speakers were Prof. J. W. Tourney, 

 Director of the Yale Forest School, who 

 spoke on " Prei-ent Dav Aspects of Forestrv 

 in tlie United States"; Mr. R. H. Camj)beU, 

 Director of Forestry, who spoke on ' ' Do- 

 minion Forestry"; Mr. H. R. MacMillan. 

 < hief Forester of British Columbia, on 

 "Forestry in British Columbia", and ^^r. 

 Clyde Leavitt on "Forest Conservation." 



Among the other guests were Mr. E. J. 

 Zavitz, Provincial Forester of Ontario, and 

 .Mr. G. A. Gutches, District Inspector for 

 Saskatchewan. 



Eastern Limit of Douglas Fir. 



Mr. J. R. Gareau, formerly of the B. C. 

 Forest Service, and now one of the field 

 officers of the Entomological Branch of the 

 Department of Agriculture. Ottawa, wrote 

 un«ler date of Decemlier, lUl t. frnm StMn 

 ford University as follows: 



''This is a tardy reply .to y>ui uixii.i 

 tion to foresters (chiefs of i»arties) to sen<l 

 the CuiKitlian Forestry Journal notes on 

 their summer's work. 



"My third and last summer in the B. C. 

 Forest Service was sj)ent in the northern 

 part of the jnovince. My work was, in char- 

 acter, similar to that of the two previous 

 seasons, and consisted in a reconnaissance 

 stU'ly of the forest conditions in the basin 

 of Willow and Bear (now called Bowron) 

 rivers, two streams of over a humlred miles 

 in length which empty into the Eraser river 

 within seventy-five miles above Fort George. 



'"The season's work was of great interest 

 from more than one viewpoint, but particu- 

 larly from that of forestry, and of the data. 

 I have gathereil. and observations, I have 

 made, the following might not be entirely 

 devoid of interest to those foresters who 

 take some interest in the scintific aspect of 

 our branch of applied botany. Two of the 

 things which most interested me were, on 

 the one hand, the fires which at different 

 times swept over that region, and on the 

 other, the distribution of forest tree specie-, 

 and the relation of the one to the other, 

 particularly in the case of Douglas fir. with 

 which species this note is concerned. 



"In the Department of the Interior Atlas 

 of <'anada. Map No. 9. "Limits of Forest 

 Trees," the eastern limit of Douglas fir, 

 between the 53rd ami .j4th parallels of lati- 

 tude, is indicateil by a line that follows the 

 low rounded ridges which form the cHviile 

 between the Fra^er river and its tributary, 

 the Willow river. This, I found to be in- 

 correct. 



"The error in fi.xing there the eastern 

 limit of Douglas fir. in that particular 

 region, is to l>e attributed, no <loubt. to the 

 rarity of that species east of that line. It 

 is comparatively rare, yet it is found over a 

 wide area and its mode of occurrence as well 

 as the characteristics of individual trees 

 force me to concUnle that it was there once 

 in much greater quantity. 



"Throughout the basin of Willow and 

 Bear rivers, from valley Viottonis to the 

 mountain sides at elevations as great as 

 4,11 HI feet above sea level, I found isolated 

 individuals of Douglas fir, or small groups 

 of them, and in a few instances this tree 

 formed the dominant species of the stand 

 over an area of from two to three square 

 miles (as far as time permitted me to aseer- 



61 



