The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-06
FUEL FROM TREES
Money Value of ArboTi-
culture as Estimated by
Mr.. Edison.
PROVISION AGAINST COAL FAMINE
Development Of Forestry Re-
commended-Power Of the
Tides.

"Star":-In a recent talk with the writer
about the worlds fuel supply and the
feasible avs for making nature do a
great deal more of mans work than at
present, Thomas Al. Edison said
Natures resources are ample If we
will only take advantage of them. Men
say that we shall be out of fuel for heat
and power production in a comparatively
short time, just because they foresee the
possible exhaustion of the coal supply.
But there need be no alarm, ever in be-
half of future generations. It is true
that, in time. the available call will be
all gone. providing its burning is con-
tinued. But, while that is being done,
nature will be making more fuel, If men
will only encourage her a little, and, as
a business, this encouragement will be
quite as profitable as most occupations.
"As long as the sun shines we can get
power. We get 1t all from the sun now,
for. coal is only sunshine stored in trees
grown ages ago and slowly. transformed
to almost pure carbon. But we don't have
to wait for trees to turn to coal in order
to burn them. Trees will grow wherever
there is sunshine and soil. Once their
growth is started, nature will give man
the equivalent of a ton of coal in forest
growth every syear On every acre of soil
in any of the honarad parts of the earth.
And there is enough waste gr~ound-that
is, ground that cannot be cropped be-
cause it is too hilly or too wet or some
thing-to make room for all the fuel
growth required. All that is needed is a
few years of patience. a careful study CT
forestry, and the laying own and OBJ
~servation, and proper cutting of trees,
and the man who owns & few acres of
waste LAND will be able to make as big
a.. net profit out of his fuel crop as he
who raises any other sort of crop. AT
present prices, indeed, the equivalent OF
a ton of coal to the acre of waste ground
would yield a better profit than almost
any other crop known"
A little investigation is sufficient to
show that Mr.. Edison's notions as to
the worlds fuel supply, above briefly
stated, are of stupendous Importance.
Within twenty miles of New York there
are probably, in rocky hills and marsh
lands, both of which could be made to
support heavy growths. of fuel timber,
but not to raise farm or garden crop.
more than 100, 900 acres of ground, and
this area, according to Mr.. Edison,
would produce the equivalent of 100000
tons of coal a year. The total annual
coal consumption of New York, how
ever, is 5000, 600 tons, and it would be
necessary to go more than twenty-five
miles to get the supply needed; but with
in the territory from which the coal sup
ply of the present is obtained, the amount
of fuel hat might be produced by tree
growing would be more than enough to
supply New York, and all the cities
within that territory, now using coal, for
an indefinite period.
This district includes Eastern Pennsyl-
vania and Northern New Jersey, and is
joined by the southeastern part of New
York, a vast region that is largely noun
famous, Astounding in steep hillsides and
rocky stretches. Only small portions of
this region are good for farming, and the
whole was originally covered with heavy
and luxuriant forest growth. This forest
has been mostly cut away and not re-
newed, a most wasteful proceeding. to
remedy which the various much-talked-of
Forestry Commissions are now beginning
to labor.
The profitableness of forest growing for
fuel production would vary greatly in diff
ferent localities, but at present prices it
would be quite as great as farming; prob
ably greater, when 1t is remembered that
NO yearly cultivation would be needed,
that the labor of cutting the trees would
be less than harvesting the crop, and
that the original value of the land would
be-much below that of farm land. Hun
dreds of thousands of acres now almost
bare of trees and unfit for anything in
their present condition could be bought
for $40 an acre, that in ten or fifteen
years-at most twenty-would yield a
gross of S. or $6 an acre, or a net of So
or 81. ss
The 100, 900 acres of waste land compara-
lively close to the city of New York, now
altogether u~nproductive, would then yield,
at the lowest figures, $4,000 DOC a year. AT
the same time the raising Of trees for
fuel would add immensely to the beauty
of the landscape. Uninteresting semi
marshes and bare and SCARED hillsides
would be clothed with living green in the
summer, and with the gorgeous colors
OF dying leaves in the autumn, while
even in the winter the flats and hills
would be more beautiful because of their
forestization than as they are now. Still
further, the systematic and continuous
cutting ofsthe timber as fast as 1t reach
ed the proper size would give employ
ment to large numbers of men. and the
forests would afford shelter to all sorts
OF game. SO that sport might again flour
iSh. And what is true of the vicinity of
New York is true almost generally, near
ly every big city in the country having
territory comparatively near by, where
wood. as a substitute for coal. could be
produced at a good profit.
Mr.. Edison believes that all this will.
ultimately, be brought to pass, n he de-
to dwel upon the economic and
aesthetic possibilities of the scheme.
But there are some other schemes for
the utilization of natures forces in which
Mr.. Edison fails to see such practical pos
sibilities as are sometimes foretold. One
of these is the utilization. of the rise ana
fall Of the tides. Away back in the re-
mote past. men living on the s~eacoast
built tdemills and gathered power for the
grinding of flour and meal and for other
purposes, from the passage through these
mills of the ebbinga and flowing tides.
One by one. however. these mills awe
been abandoned, until now only a few are
in practical operation. Mr.. Edison saws
that this is because the world has got be-
You'd them.
VIVA Is needed most in the production
of power he said. sis steadiness. Tide
mills work internationally, and, no mat
ter how built. the Intermittent feature of
their work cannot be done away with.
day; then there Is a time of slack water;
then there a time of falling tide; then the
tide rises again, and so on. This fact
alone prevents the production of steady
power, and, as tides vary with the sea-
sons and with the wind, the amount of
valuable power from them must also vary.
The cumbrousness the extremely
expensive nature of the machinery neces-
sary. to the production of great power is
another obstacle / have seen It stated
that the tides In New York's harbor alone
could pc made to do all of New York's
course. a rise and fall there Of a tremen-
dous body OF water for a few feet. But to
utilize that water movement. machinery
of vaster extent and greater cost h