The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1882-06-16
Destruction of Timber---The Ca
talpa.
From the Prairie Farmer.

TO make shoe.pe enough for
Americas use consumes annually
100000 cords of soft maple timber.
TO make our lucifer matches, $780, 900
cubic feet of our best pines are re-
quired annually. Sasts and boot.
trees take 100000 cords of birch,
beech, and maple annually, and the
handles of tools take annually 100000
cords more. The baking of our
bricks and tiles consumes at least
1900, 900 cords of wood annually, or
what would cover Il forest of at least
$4,000 acres of land. Telegraph poles
already up represent 100000 trees,
and their annual repairs consume
300, 900 more. The ties of our rail-
roads consume thirty years growth
of $4,000 acres Of our best timber
lands, and to fence all of our railroads
would cost $45, 100000 with an an
nnal expenditure of at least SIS. 00O,-
600 more for repairs. Our packing
boxes cost $40, O0O.0 900 yearly, made
mostly of elm. The timber annually
consumed for wagons. threshing ma
chimes, and other agricultural imple-
ments is worth at least 500, 200, 900.
Miners props may be valued at $780,
600, 900 annually. COoperage, $40,.
100000. Shingles. 100000. Lum-
Der for building purposes, $500, O00.-
600. Lumber and timber for bridges,
ships, boats, ETC., SOC, 100000. Lum-
Der for cabinet-making purposes and
undertakers stock, $500, O00, 900. Cord
wood and rails, $500, OOO, 900. Fenc-
ing, $lOO, 100000. Hop poles, $780,
100000. In addition to the above
ways of consumption must be count
ed the great devastating fires such as
lately swept over large portion of
Michigan. consuming at least ST..
DOC, O00, 900 worth of valuable timber.
These undeniable facts staring our
American people in the face, it is
self-evident that our timber supply
will in few years have become ex-
hausted, and the rainfall as natural
consequence will 60 along with it, as
history has recorded in other parts of
the old world, where they were so
shOrt-sighted as to let their timber
supply become exhausted. It being
self.evident that we, the American
people, as national necessity have
got to 60 into timber planting,
what variety of timber will be the
most easily grown, make the quick.
est returns, and be worth the
most money for general purposes
We will mention the following varie-
ties: Black walnat, European larch,
white ash, shell bark hickory, swamp
oak, white oak, chestnut, sassafras,
mulberry, blackberry, California
redwood wherever it will succeed),
cypress, hard maple, white pine, red
cedar. balsam fir and especially the
Western hardy catalpa. 1t is per-
fectly hardy, very rapid grower,
the timber is imperishable under or
lying on the ground; it puts OH as
fine polish as blackwalnut for cab
met making purposes, a beautiful
towering tree for groves 1.-THE bloom
very fragrant), lawns, streets or road
side trees. 1t will grow large enough
for fence.posts in five years. In ten
years it will grow large enough for
telegraph poles, in twenty years large
Ohou6h AVA ioAlAOou tiCot
years large enough for shingles, piles
and bridge timber, and forty years
large enough for saw logs, for lumber
for all purposes. Every acre of rich
land planted to this variety of catal-
pa, will, in from twenty to forty
years, be made worth ut least 81 600.
There should be a grove of ut least
ten acres on every farm all over our
entire Nation, especially on every
prairie farm of the West. We are
fully convinced that If our govern.
ment had planted the great Ameri.
can Desert, west of Kansas, to the
catalpa, that 1t would succeed there,
and put a stop to those hot winds, in
time, that are so destructive to u
large portion of our Western country,
and be the means of bringing Oh rain
on that large portion OF our Ameri-
can territory that stands so much in
need Of it at this time.
Lacon, Ill. A. III. CASTOR.