The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-16
TIMBER CULTURE FOR RAIL
ROADS

The bureau of forestry has continued
this year on a far larger scale the ex-
periments in timber seasoning and pre-
servation for the railroads which it be-
gan last year under DIR. Hermann Won
Schrenk. This summer the work will
be carried on in many states-east,
south, and west-and will be broadened
in scope and made even more thorough
than before. This work will be done
for the New York Central, the Erie the
Baltimore & Ohio. and the Pennsylva-
mia railroads in the east; and for the
Illinois Central. the Santa Fe, the St.
Louis & San Francisco. the Missouri,
Kansas & Texas: the Northern Pacific,
and the Burlington in the south and
west.
The scarcity of valuable timbers is
felt by no class of consumers more
keenly than by the railroads, which use
every year 10000, 600 ties merely to re-
new those worn out and decayed. The
price of timbers has risen in some in
stances to a figure which makes their
use prohibitive in other cases the sup
ply is so nearly exhausted that the
roads have been compelled to look about
for new timbers.
ed on to assist in solving the difficulty,
and has come forward with the very
practical and simple suggestion that the
railroads. instead of continuing to use
expensive, high-grade timbers for such
a low-grade purpose as that of railroad
ties, shall use the cheaper woods. For
example, to the complaint of the New
York Central that it finds it more and
ri,
ties from Georgia at the price it can af-
ford to pay, the bureau suggests that
the road use the beech, maple, and birch
of the Adirondacks. The complaint that
the timbers rot very quickly when laid
in the ground is answered by the sug-
gestion that they should be seasoned
and preserved. just as beech is seasoned
and preserved in France. The Great
Eastern railroad of France has succeed
ed in making beech ties last 80 years by
impregnating them with tar oils. The
unseasoned longleaf pine ties used by
the New York Central last only five
years; and the beech if laid green, with
out seasoning or preserving, would in
many cases last no more than three
years. The substance of the proposal
which the bureau has made to the rail-
roads, and which the railroads have
thought so well of as to adopt, is that
experiments be made to determine
whether cheaper timbers may be treat
ed with preservatives at a cost so low
and be made to last such long time,
that it will pay to substitute them for
the more expensive timbers now en-
ployed.
The railroads have thought so well of
these ideas that they will not only carry
on under the bureaus direction the nee
essary experiments in seasoning and
preserving, but have engaged the bu-
reau's help in learning where cheap tim
bers for ties may be obtained In other
words, the railroads have decided that
if they can be convinced that it will
pay to season and preserve cheap tim
bers for ties, they will acquire large
areas of timber lands on which they
will grow their own trees, cut their own
ties and thus be assured of a steady
supply. This means that some of the
great railroads of the country are in a
fair way to practice forestry on a very
large scale, and to employ great many
fOresterS.