Tárogató, 1942-1943 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1942-10-01 / 4. szám
V TÁROGATÓ 13 CANADA’S GIANT MUSHROOM By Mary Dale Muir Even so short a time as twenty months ago no one heard very much about Canada’s aircraft industry. Today it is her giant mushroom. Dominion aircraft manufacturers have in hand orders for well over 10,000 aircraft, amounting to something more than $500,000,- 000 in actual business. To manufacture these planes there are forty times as many people employed by aircraft plants as were employed two and one-half years ago. Twenty months ago the aircraft industry in Canada had nine small poorly equipped main plants. Most of these were situated near rough fields. They were supported by one or two small engine service and repair plants in Montreal and two or three small overhaul plants in Western Canada. Today the aircraft industry of Canada occupies 5,000,000 square feet of floor space, employs 40,000 men and women and produces far more planes in a week than were manufactured in a pre-war year. Down in Kingston there is now in operation an aluminum forging plant capable of forging the largest propeller blades in the world. Thousands upon thousands of propellers are turned out there. At Montreal, St. John’s (Quebec), and Winnipeg there are completely up-to-date propeller-manufacturing plants where blades of every type are fashioned and finished. There they produce solid wooden blades, complicated laminated or compressed wood blades manufactured under a secret formula, and operating in a metal hub and metal blades themselves assembled with their hubs and quite ready for use. In Toronto two large concerns are manufacturing aircraft instruments. In a few months, if not already, Canada will be able to manufacture everything to maintain its aeroplanes so far as power plant instruments and a regular line of standard fight instruments are concerned. Parachutes are being turned out in quantities in Quebec and Ontario. Farm instrument companies all over the country are now busy manufacturing wings, ailerons, flaps, undercarriages and important engine parts. One huge Oilcloth and Linoleum Company is adapting its immense presses to aircraft work. Soon it expects to be producing pressed metal components for some of Canada’s most important programmes. Not only that but from Coast to Coast there has sprung up a chain of modem overhaul and repair plants. Men and women employed in these plants, mostly keeping Canada’s training planes in condition, number 5,000 and the floor space occupied is 1,000,000 square feet. Every aircraft. plant in the Dominion is booked up solidly with orders until December 31st, 1943, some of them even into 1944 and 1945. It is a sad world situation that has brought about this amazing mushroom growth in the aircraft industry in Canada but the result is a distinct tribute to Canada’s powers of growth and organization. —“The Canadian Boy". DO WILD ANIMALS FREEZE? In Forest and Out-doors, Tony Lascelles tells his Canadian readers that healthy wildings, unlike healthy humans, never freeze, and even frost-bitten ears or feet are never to be found. They are exposed to all temperatures, and they know what fifty or sixty below zero means at times, but they survive, so long as they can secure food. Who ever heard of a wolf freezing its feet or ears, although its ears are surely long enough? Centuries of exposure to great hardship have bred into these denizens of the wild the ability to withstand temperatures which human beings can scarcely endure. CHANGE IN BOUNTY REQUIREMENTS Saskatchewan has introduced a change into its requirements for bounty when hawks and owls are killed. Instead of requiring the hunter to present the feet, the new regulation demands that the stomach be offered to the government agents who are acting in the matter. The Government sponsors the campaign against the birds of prey, but wishes to be sure that it is right in its belief that these birds are hurtful to agriculture and game. There is a growing belief that these so-called predators are often more helpful than injurious, and that the fanner is often killing a friend when he kills what he calls a bird of prey. A scientific examination of the contents of the stomachs of these birds will show just what they are killing and whether they are useful or injurious. ' OUR ENGLISH SECTION.
