62 



Canadian Forestry Journal. April, 1915 



tain but possibly of a greater extent) as on 

 the southern slope of the mountains north- 

 west of Stony lake. 



"These trees are all big and tall, appar- 

 ently very old, and in the bark and wood of 

 the lower part of the trunk of many of them 

 can be seen traces of fires. I have also 

 found in many places, in dense stands of big 

 spruce and balsam, old, dry, partly burned 

 stumps of the same species (Douglas fir) 

 which I take as a further evidence that 

 Douglas fir formed a very important part 

 of the forest which this region at one time 

 supported, and that its almost complete an- 

 nihilation in that region, and the present 

 and new type of forest, is the result of large 

 and repeated fires. 



' ' The foregoing also leads me to believe 

 that, although I am not acquainteil with 

 the country lying north and south of the 

 ground which I have examined, a line with 

 slight zigzags running from a point a short 

 distance west of Calgary (assuming that the 

 eastern limit is correctly indicated at that 

 point on the Atlas) to a point slightly north- 

 east of Ft. McLeod, for the eastern limit of 

 Douglas fir, would be nearer the truth than 

 the present one with its big inward curve 

 between the same two points, and ^vhich I 

 have proved to be in part incorrect. 



"It is the privilege of the man doing 

 leconnaissance work to see much country, 

 and as he has thus the opportunity to gain 

 a knowledge of the 'variation' in the forest 

 v.hich corresponds with changes of the phy- 

 sical conditions, a few summers' work iu 

 that province is of great instructive value. 



'•'British Columbia, with its diversity of 

 topography and climate, is surely a great 

 forest laboratory and some knowledge of 

 her forest regions should be to those of us 

 young Canadian foresters who have been 

 there, a valuable prerequisite or fuudamen- 

 tal for our further studies." 



FIRE PROTECTION ALONG RAIL- 

 WAYS. 



Mr. Clyde Leavitt, Chief Inspector of 

 the Board of Railway Commissioners for 

 Canada, writes approviugly of the ad- 

 vanced fire })rotective methods of the Bos- 

 ton and Maine Railroad. Besides follow- 

 ing the general practice of railways in 

 burning off the right-of-way, each year, 

 this company co-oj^erates with the land 

 owniers, along their lines, in disposing of 

 inflammable debris on a narrow strip on 

 each side of the right-of-way. Old slash- 

 ings, outside tracks, greatly increase the 

 menace from fires which may start iu dry 

 grass, within the right-of-way. The com- 

 pany clears this outside area at its own 

 expense when it is impracticable for own- 

 ers to do so safely. It is reported that, in 

 a year, the fire hazard was reduceil in 75 

 places by this policy. The method is in- 



expensive as the railway sectionmen do the 

 fire protective work on rainy days, when 

 it is safe, and track work would be sus- 

 l>ended anyway. Mr. Leavitt observes that 

 the policy is good from a business stand- 

 point. It reduces damage claims against 

 the railw^ay and the elimination of forest 

 fires tends to increase freight and passen- 

 ger revenues. 



A LESSON FROM CHINA. 



Clarence How, in an article in World 's 

 Work oh a recent visit to China, and the 

 lessons he learned there, says the most im- 

 portant lesson he learned was as to the 

 need of conservation of the forest re 

 sources of America. "Hardly anything 

 that I saw on my whole trip," he say.s. 

 ' ' burne<l itself more deeply into my nieni- 

 firv than the h^avy penalty that the Celes- 

 tiiil Empire is now paying for the neglect 

 of hei' forests in former years. In the 

 country north of Peking I found river- 

 valley after river-valley — once rich and 

 pioductive, but now become an abomina- 

 tion of desolation — covered with countless 

 tons of sand and stone brought down from 

 the treeless mountain-sides. So long as 

 these slopes were forest-clad, the decaying 

 leaves and humus gave a sponke-like char- 

 acter to the soil ui3on them, and it gave 

 out the water gradually to the streams be- 

 low. Now, however, the peaks are in 

 most cases only enormous rock-pikes, the 

 erosion having laid waste the country 

 round about; or else they are mixtures of 

 rock and earth, rent by gorges through 

 which furious torrents rush down immedi- 

 ately after each rainfall, submerging once 

 fruitful plains with rock and infertile 

 gully-dirt. Where the thrifty, pigtailed 

 Chinese peasant once cultivated broad and 

 level fields in such river valleys, he is now 

 able to rescue only a few half-heartel 

 patches by piling the rock in heaps and 

 saving a few intervening arable remnants 

 from the general soil-wreck." 



DO OUR PART. 



And yet, while ' ' we, the people ' ' are wor- 

 rying about the details of tariffs, ballots and 

 the like, one is tempted to forget the im- 

 portance of the conservation of our natural 

 resources and especially the conservation of 

 our forests, which is such an important fac- 

 tor, not only in the lumber industry but in 

 the flow of our rivers and the rainfall on 

 our farms. Moreover, we must not depend 

 upon our presidents and Congress to do all 

 this work of conservation for us; we must 

 each do our own part. — Philadelphia Post. 



