Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1900-09-07
RAILROAD TIES.
GREATER DEMAND AND LESS
sUPPLY-VALUABL LES
SON IN FORESTRY.

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a problem of increasing perplexity to
the railroads of this country Is the
question of the tie supply, says the
New York Sun. In some places it has
already become serious. The main
sources of supply are far removed from
the near neighborhood of railroads. 1t
was not long ago that the railroads
were concerning themselves mainly
about the question of the price of ties,
but of recent years there has been anX-
iety lest they should be unable to pro-
cure enough for their purpose at any
price. All sorts of more or less expen-
sive experiments with ties have been
tried, with as yet but little or no sue
cess. The most that has been done Is
probably in the direction of adapting
means of prolonging the life of the in
divldual tie. There are a great many
clever railroad men and practical
chemists engaged in the work of inven-
ton, and the man who discovers some
compound that may be cheaply manu-
factured and will serve the purpose Is
sure to make an enormous fortune.
Not only would such an invention re-
lieve the anxiety regarding the source
of the tie supply, but it would materi-
ally reduce the cost of track making.
There is nearly ton of steel in every
80 feet of standard single track rail
road, but the cost of ties in the same
distance is even greater than that of
the metal. A railroad such as any of
the big trunk lines running into New
York has to buy ties by the hundreds
of thousands each year, and the order
to stop buying never goes out of the of
flee. They want all they can get, and a
man with a steamer load of ties in the
port of New York would have almost
as ready n market as If it We're loaded
with gold. Nothing has ever been
found that will successfully take the
place of the hand hewn tie of young,
growing timber and at the present
rate the demand for ties actually
threatens the extinction of the forests
of America.
Only few figures are necessary to
demonstrate that this is not an exag-
gerated view of the situation. A new
mile of stapdard single track railroad,
without taking into consideration the
switch tracks and side tracks, requires
about 4,500 ties. The average life of a
railroad tie is about five years, so that
In ten years a railroad will use ties at
the rate of about 5000 for every mile
of track. This means that each and
every year the Pennsylvania Railroad
company requires 2,J00000 ties for
that part of their system east of Pitts
burg, that the New York Central re-
quires nearly 100000 between New
York and Buffalo and that the Erie
railroad requires in the neighborhood
of 100000 every year between Jersey
City and Salamanca. These are figures
that any one may easily verify. 1t is
no wonder that thoughtful railroad
men are asking themselves the ques-
tion where the supply is coming from
in 100 years or 80 or perhaps In 80. 1t
is estimated that under the best possi-
bic circumstances and making no al
lowance for fire and other accidents it
would require a plot of ground 1000
acres in extent to grow 100000 rail
road ties, and 1t would require fully 80
years to develop them.
In America numbering has always
been more or less haphazard busi-
ness. The pioneers found unbroken
forests of matured trees, and In time
they simply devastated them. Their
successors seized upon the parts which
offered inducements for settlement on
account of the agricultural possibili-
ties, and upon the remainder was al
lowed to grow tangle of brush which
was conquered in time by the trees of
sturdier and more tenacious growth
AS often as these trees attained mar
ketable size and the demand for mate
rial for hundreds of new and growing
towns and cities was felt the forests
were again invaded and again given
over to natures undisputed process of
healing. But nature was never or at
least very rarely trained or aided in
her selection of things useful for man.
In those countries where the things of
nature and those of civilization were
i on n more equal basis these matters
were looked after more wisely, and in
Germany, for example, forestry has
long been a serious profession and a
profitable science.