Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-06-18
STATE HOUSE.
What Practical Forestry is Do
ing for Timber Lands.
, Sec 'etary Matthews Getting Ready
for Annual Old Home Week.
Another Batch of Towns Want Share
of Good Roads Stipend.

Last year, it will be recalled, Clifford
Pinchot, chief of the United States
business of forestry, sent a crew of
forest experts from his department into
Maine to study the growth of timber
on burnt over land. This force was
under the immediate command of
Ralph S. Hosmer, a graduate of the
Yale Forest school, whose report was
leading feature of this years report
of Hon. E. E. Ring, the State forest
commissioner. Because of the fact
that Mr.. Pinchot has taken such
lively interest in the work of the
Maine forestry commission, having
acted in conjunction with Mr.. Ring in
the past and presumably will again,
what he has to say on the subject of
practical forestry cannot fail to be of
great interest to the people of Maine.
In a recent interview Mr.. Pinchot
gives lucid and interesting resume of
what he has been doing along the
lines of practical forestry and care
fully explains many points in connec-
| ton with his work that are very i'm
portant to all who are interested in the
question of forest preservation.
THE most gratifying feature of our
work in endeavoring to inculcate
the economic principles of forestry is
found in the attention which is being
paid to the subject and the interest
taken in our experiments by the
| recognized leaders in the lumber in
dustry, and among the great consum-
ers of our native forest timbers," he
says.
when we first undertook to incul-
cate these principles we were met with
certain scepticiSm, not to say antag-
onism, from the very men whom we
We're in Il position to benefit the most.
They regarded us as Missionaries, in
capable of grasping the necessities of
practical business. Now all is changed,
and they are coming to us for assist
ance in the problems which confront
them, reading our literature and mini
Testing in every way possible their in
terest in the great economic science of
forestry
THE rapid disappearance of the best
American timbers has developed a new
| method of economy, which is, in brief,
that inferior timbers shall be pressed
| into service and by proper seasoning
and preserving made to take the place
of those more valuable.
THE idea is the inevitable outcome
of wasteful cutting, long continued,
| which has culled the forests of their
| best trees, so that industries requr-
| ing high grade woods at low cost are
less and less able to obtain supplies at
a price which they can afford to pay.
| White nal, for O rDnlp for
years practically the only wood used
| for railroad ties. So abundant and
| cheap was this timber that it never Oc-
CURED to the railroads it would not al
ways continue to be abundant and
| cheap. Ties were laid without season.
| ing two days after they had been
| hewn, or We're left to lie and decay in
bitches of water before they were put
| in the track. But conditions have
| changed; white oak for ties, fence
posts, piles and other common pur
poses cannot be used to the same eX
tent rs formerly, and it's place has larg
| ly been taken by inferior timbers.
1T is not enough that forestry on a
| large scale replace the present waste
full methods of cutting, since forestry
| cannot make up Immediately for what
has been lost. 1t is essential, while adj
| ministoring wisely to forests which still
remain that the timbers cut be now
put to their highest use; that n good
| timber be put only to a high grade pur
pose, and that poor timber be subSti
| tuted for good timber whenever it
will do the work required.
This kind of forest economy the
bureau of forestry, having in mind the
increasing demand for good timbers
and the diminishing forest resources,
has persistently urged and encouraged.
BY every available means it has at
tempted to find uses for woods not now
Regarded as understandable, and to sub
lstitutc them fer woods rarer but better
known. The railroads especially. enor-
nous consumers of wood, have been
impressed with the necessity for such
la substitution. Lodgepole pine in the
Northwest has been laid as ties in the
last year instead of bull pine. Short
leaf and loblolly ties will probably soon
replace those of longleaf in Mississippi
Louisiana and Texas. Hemlock and
tamarack may take the place of oak
land pine in other parts of the country;
and when oak is used for all ties it
will be the inferior species instead of
the valuable white oak.
The substitution of low grade for
high grade timbers depend on what
can be done to increase the lasting
powers of the substitutes: in other
words. it depends on timber preserva-
ton. Special treatment must so pro-
long the life of the inferior timbers,
and at a cost so small as to make the
investment Il good one.
The main advantages of seasoning
timber are that seasoned timber lasts
longer, since the water in green tim
Der is necessary to the life of decay
producing fungi; that it greatly in
creases the effectiveness of the pre-
sentative treatment. and that by re-
ducing the weight of timber it causes
a corresponding saving in freight.
in Europe all railroad ties, bridge
materials. telegraph poles fence posts
etc. are commonly seasoned the time
of seasoning varying from several
months to two years. In this country
the tremendous development of the in
dustrieS that require building lumber
has pressed the lumber manufacturer