Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1903-07-21

and to employ great many forest
ers.
The present method Of purchas-
ing railroad ties can not long con-
tinue. It is becoming more and
more hazardous to rely on what
may be obtained on the market, for
the reason that the market is be-
coming more and more unwilling TO
let its timbers go as railroad ties
when as sawed lumber they would
bring a higher price. Eastern
roads often have to haul their ties
as far as ZOO miles. 1t is absolute
lily necessary that supplies be grown
nearer home and that there be a
certainty of how much can be OBJ
tanned. A railroad that needs half
a million ties at any price and is
often compelled tor pay far more
than they are worth The great
advantage to the railroad of grow
ing its own ties and practicing for
estry would be that it would know
&c . certainty just how many ties it
could count on every year and how
much they would cost.
An expert of the bureau is now
cruising in the Adirondacks to de-
termine how much available hard
wood lands there are along the New
York Central's tracks. Similar
work will be done for the Erie and
Pennsylvania. A party of forest
ers is on the 90, 000-acre tract OF the
Baltimore and Ohio road near Cam
-on-Gauley, w. Va to deter
mine how much tie timber there is
on the tract and how many trees it
will produce evary year under con-
servative management.
Seasoning experiments with rail
road ties are being conducted in
co operation with the Santa Fe
railroad and the Kirby Lumber
Company at Silsbee, Texas, and
the ties are being treated with
preservatives at Somerville, Tex.
The timbers undergoing the expe-
riments are longleaf, loblolly and
shortleaf pines.
All along the lines of the Illinois
Central and the st. Louis and San
Francisco seasoning experiments
are in progress on swamp, rod, pin
and COW oak and beech and gum.
The experiments in seasoning the
lodgepole pine, carried on last year
for the Burlington railroad in Bear
Canyon, Montana, and Sheridan,
Wyo., have been continued this
ear. Last year 1t was found that
80 per cent. of the weight of the ties
as lost by oPen-air drying, which
resulted in an enormous saving in
freight
Work of a similar nature to the
railroad experiments is being car
ried on for the American TelegT aph
and Telephone Company, which
used last year 10000 telephone
poles and 100000 feet of lumber
in cross. arms. Seasoning expert
ments are being conducted on chest
nut telephone poles near Harris
burg, Pa, and on cedar poles near
Wilmington, N. G.
Important and valuable as is this
work to the railroad and telegraph
companies, it is of tar greater i'm
portance and value to the country
at large. The use Of cheaper tim
bers for railroad ties is in several
ways an economic saving; it relieves
the high-graCe timbers of a part of
the heavy demand that is being
made upon them, opens a market
for timOers for which there Is now
little sale, and affords splendid op-
pOrtunities for conservative man
agement of timber lands. The work
is being prosecuted according to the
regular cooperative system of the
bureau, by which the field and
travelling expenses Of the bureau S
agents are paid by those for whom
the work &c dppa