The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-17

California alone the aggregate area of plantations in eucalyptus amounts to from 5000 to 5000 acres, and in many of the other States considerable work has been done in forest extension. In the Statesof Kansas. where the Yaggy, Hunneweli. Fariington and Munger plantations of hardy catalpa are loeaf. ed, much land has been grown to treesl
 Aside from the mere planting of trees the Pennsylvania Is leading other roads in the protection of woodIots and tirn- Der tracts in It's possession. The road has acquired a considerable amount OF such land in It's far-sighted policy or protecting the drainage basins arouud the reservation that furnishes the Va. ter supply for tanks and shops. over. mature timber, undesirable trees and worthless underbrush are being re moved and the poduct used. when poss sibIe, while q young and vigorous growth is being put in their place.
 With all their optimism the railroads that are pioneers in this work do not pretend to have solved the problem of d threatened timber famine. They see that the time they must walt for the first ties to mature is beyond that set by experts as the end of the nations forest supply. unless present general conditions are improved. But they of
  and sensible one for corporations, tn- dividuals. municipalities and civil di- visions to follow. They find tree planting advisable for several other reasons Land now unprodnctiva and paying only small rents can be uti- fixed. and a fairer return given on. the investment It will always assure the company a limited amount of mate rial for construction work. it will tn- prove the company's watersheds, and one of the best reasons of all, will De nf exceptional educational value to private land owners who should do similar work. for four-fifths of the for ests of the United States are in private hands
 1t takes oyer io0, 0,oOo.Ooo ties annual Iy to repair and add to the 100000 miles of railway In the United States. Ons-half of these used are oak. one sixth are Southern pine. and the rest are fir. cedar, chestnut, cypress, Weat- arn pine, tamarack. hemloek and red- wood. The life. of 8 tie ranges from three and half to eight years. The price ranges from ffty-two cents for oak, to twenty eight cents for hem lock. It is estimated that to furnish .O0O, 900 ties of oak, pine or heu1lock for any average road for an indeh- nite period of time, would require geo. GOO acres Of land as good and with conditions as favorable as those offer ed by the Appalachian mountain re- zion. Because of the amount of land required and the time to wait for the development of their own timber. the railroads are beginning to acquire standing forests for the practice of conservative numbering and are urg- ing the treatment of all railroad ties just as the old World railroads have already learned to do. Certain ideal conditions would result from wider spread of private forests if conducted after the manner planned by the rail- ways. Forests on watersheds mean . perpetual conservation of water for farming, manufacturing or irrigation purposes, and the prevention of de- vastating floods such as are known to the Ohio nd Mississippi valleys. where little retards the rush of water down the hillsides
 Copyright. 1908. by Frederick J. Has,
 kin.)
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