Canadian Forestry Journal, October, ipi6 



755 



the tendency of local residents to point 

 to the terrible contrast in the Ontario 

 Claybelt. It would seem, therefore, 

 that the fire hazard in the Quebec Abit- 

 ibi district deserves a more adequate 

 offset in rangers giving their exclusive 

 attention to the one job. The means 

 of fire patrol at present do not approxi- 

 mate the minimum requirements of 

 ss.iety. 



Fire supervision in lands bearing a 

 poor tree growth sometimes impresses 

 onlookers as superfluous, unless set- 

 tlers' lives and property are likely to be 

 in danger. The other side to this ob- 

 jection is that in many parts of the 

 country along the Transcontinental the 

 poor growth in the unpopulated musk- 

 egs beside the track leads a few miles 

 back into large-sized timber. While 

 the destruction of the muskeg spruce 

 may be of little account in itself, the 

 fire will pass eventually into the tim- 

 ber adjoining. The point is illustrat- 

 ed by a town fire brigade which recog- 

 nizes any fire, whether in a shack of a 

 skyscraper, as a serious peril to public 

 property, and takes as prompt precau- 

 tions in one case as in the other. 

 Whether in Quebec or any province, 

 patchwork in forest protection is a 

 waste of money. Where roads are 

 few and far between and only the wa- 

 terways intervene, the same fuse of de- 

 struction leads through all forest 

 growth. Touch it off at any point 

 and wha will prophesy the conse- 

 quences? 



Real Ranging. 



The trip disclosed not only the in- 

 equalities of forest protection outside 

 the well-organized patrol district of 

 the St. Maurice Association, (in which 

 the Provincial Government is a most 

 helpful partner), but some of the rea- 

 sons why that Association has built up 

 its record of immunity from timber 

 loss. The valuable weapon of the set- 

 tlers' permit laws has been applied in 

 a thorough but tactful manner by all 

 the rangers. In 1916, only one damag- 

 ing fire was set by human hands. Man- 

 ager Sorgius and his men have accom- 

 plished their results in fire prevention 

 ■and fire quelling by the very antithesis 

 of such time-serving, job-holding prac- 

 tices as usually find their highest ex- 



pression in the political patronage plan 

 of fire ranging. The men are engaged 

 on the basis of experience, energ}' , and 

 intelligence. They are closely in- 

 spected. A "camaraderie" is encour- 

 aged by providing such comfortable 

 quarters and equipment as the visiting 

 i)arty saw in the cabin at Manouan. 

 There is no imaginable barrier to the 

 duplication of these effective methods 

 in every provincial and federal forest 

 system in Canada, — no barrier at least 

 that will bear public examination or a 

 government's frank discussion. 



A trip on a speeder for a total of 

 about .six hundred miles is in itself a 

 spicy experience. Rain and cold 

 U'inds were frequently encountered, 

 but interfered little with the running 

 time or the grim delight of holding 

 fast to a self-propelled packing-case. 

 Tripping along at thirty miles an hour 

 in the pitch dark, seated a few inches 

 above the roadbed, with rain and light- 

 ning occasionally putting the joy into 

 life,, was equalled only by a night 

 spent in a freight car from Parent to 

 Doucet. with a bale of hay for a mat- 

 tress and a lamplight breakfast at four 

 o'clock. 



Observations Abroad. 



Mr. Roy Campbell, secretary of the 

 Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, 

 Montreal, returned recently from Eu- 

 rope, where he had been engaged as 

 secretary of the special trade commis- 

 sion appointed by the Dominion Gov- 

 ernment. Mr. Campbell has some in- 

 teresting observations of the French 

 forestry methods as carried out in the 

 mountainous region inland frorh Bor- 

 deaux and Limoges, a sandy mountain- 

 ous country with patches of well-man- 

 aged forest of from one hundred to a 

 thousand acres. Everything in this 

 region was cut from five inches up- 

 wards, largely for military purposes. 

 The litter was carefully cleared up and 

 branch material bundled for fuel. 

 Some of the oak floors in French homes 

 were a couple of hundred years old, 

 and still possessed their original 

 beauty. In England, Mr. Campbell 

 made note of the railway ties, which 

 were creosoted and larger in dimen- 

 sions than Canadian ties. 



