The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-01-31

numbering requires capital, head for
business problems. a capacity for an
endless amount of hard work. judg-
ment in handling men, and faculty
for securing timber lands that may be
cleared with the cost reduced TO the
minimum. The industry has developed
remarkable trait in some men of esti-
mating the number of feet contained in
wood lot The late John Murray Of
Westfield, a man whose early surround
ings made it impossible for him to Sc
cure even the rudiments of what is
called education in the sense of school
instruction became so Xepert that in
passing through a lot Of timber he
could estimate at once, within COM
paratively few feet, what the trees
would cut Everything estimated on
the basis of thousand. The lot will
cut so many thousand feet of timber;
the choppers cut so many thousand
feet day, the sawyer rushes through
the mill a certain number of thousand
feet; the teamsters haul so many thous-
and in a day In fact, the men are all
paid. according to the number of thous-
and feet of logs or timber, that they
cut, saw or draw.
One may perhaps appreciate with
what rapidity the woods are being cut
off in this section when they learn that
even in a half-dozen of the towns in the
western part of Hampden County there
are now fully a score of portable mills
in operation. Many of them have made
speciality of getting out railroad ties,
talaYNhnrSn tnIaoro nh nd cfr
poles. These are invariably of chestnut
that wood possessing qualities not
found in timber of the hardwood vari-
cites. Westfeld has been called one of
the largest tie markets on the Boston
and Albany road. The demand for ties
is nearly always brisk. with so cents as
the prevailing price for a single tie that
comes up to the requirements. For the
steam roads tie must be about eight
feet long, with a face of eight inches.
1t must also be about seven inches
in thickness. For seconds from 35 to
40 cents is paid. The electric roads
make use of smaller ties, and will get
along with those that are foot shorter
than the regulation steam-roads tie.
Chestnut grows rapidly under favorable
~~-@NNSASAANs
quires from twenty to thirty years.
The demand is so great however, for
chestnut ties, poles, etc. that the supply
is lessening and substitute is being
sought by many of the railroads.
The government Department of
Agriculture and Bureau of Foresty
have been having experts look into this
problem of forest destruction to deter
mine if there is not some remedy. The
amount of wood that is being used by
the different manufacturing concerns,
the railroads, and in the construction of
houses, ETC., of course amounts yearly
to billions of feet. The country is
growing, and as the demand increases
the supply is constantly being reduced.
The Government has found that some
relief may eventually come in the cult
walton of the hardy catalpa tree. 1t
grows fast and the few groves in the
West are said to be making their own
ers, rapidly rich. The Department of
Agriculture is urging the farmers to
plant groves, in the hope that it will
put stop, in measure, to this whole
sale forest destruction. The catalps
wood is almost indestructible. Ties,
poles, and posts that have been in the
ground for years show no sign of de-
cay. he trees can be grown with little
trouble or expense.
The denuding of these hillsides and
plains in this age of commercialism not
only mars the beauty of the scenery,
taking from our hills much of their
charm, but presents another problem of
more or less serious nature. The
cutting away of wood bording the
brooks and the rivers is always followed
by a partial drying up Of the streams,
and in some instances small brooks dis
appear. The trees about a brook hold