Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1908-05-23
FERMENTATION of Decay IN Wood.


The plans which were under way at
the Deadwood Office of the forest SER
vice are now completed for the erection
of a dipping" tank at EDglewood and
a site has been secured from the Burl-
ington for the location of the same. 1t
will be maintained and operated by the
government and is for the benefit of the
manufacturers and consumers of lumber
and timber in the Black Hills. It's OBJ
ject is to subject sawed lumber and tim
her to treatment which will add to it's
durability and will be particularly use
full here for converting bug killed tim
ber into material that may be used for
building and other purposes that will
last much longer than can be expected
when employed in its present inferior
condition. The following details re-
garding the cost of treatment and the
additional life given timber when sub
jected to the creosote treatment, will be
interesting and useful:
1t is estimated that fence post, which
under ordinary circumstances will last
for perhaps two years, will, if given
preservative treatment costing about 10
cents, last eighteen years. The service
telephone poles, and mine props, can be
doubled, and often trebled, by inexpen-
sive preservative treatment Today,
when the cost of wood is a big item to
every farmer, every stockman, every
railroad manager, every miner-to
every one, in fact, who must use tim
ber where it is likely to decay-this is
fact which should be carefully consid-
cred.
1t is easy to see that if the length of
time timbers can be used is oubled only
half as much timber will be required as
before, and only one-half as much mon-
ey need be spent in the purchase oftim-
Der. Moreover, many woods which
were for long time considered almost
worthless can be treated and made to
last as long as the scarcer and more ex-
pensive kinds.
Of the actual saving in dollars and
cents through preservative treatment a
fence post such as was mentioned at the
beginning, might serve as one example
The post is of loblolly pine, and costs,
untreated, about s cents, or, including
the cost of setting, IA cents. 1t lasts
about two years. Compromising inter-
est at per cent, the annual charge of
such post is 7.53 cents; that lie, it costs
1853 cents year TO keep the post in SER
vice. Preservative treatment costing 10
cents will increase its length of life
about Is years. In this case, the total
cost of the post set, is "a cents, which
compounded at 5 per cent, gives an an
nual charge of 2.04 cents. Thus the
saving due to treatment is $40 cents a
year. Assuming that there are two hun
dred posts per mile, there is a saving
each year for every mile of fence of a
sumo equivalent to the interest on
$2l9.60.
| In the same way, preservative treat
| ment VIII increase the length OF life OF
a bug killed pine railroad tie from FIVE
years to twelve years, and will reduce
the annual charge from I1.53 cents to
948 cents, which amounts to a saving of
$58.75 per mile.
1t is estimated that 10000 acres are
required each year to grow timber for
the anthracite coal mines alone. The
average life of an untreated mine prop
is not more than three years. By pro-
per preservative treatment, it can be
prolonged by many times this figure.
Telephone and telegraph poles, which
in ten or twelve years, or even less, de-
cay so badly at the ground line that they
have to be removed, can by a simple
treatment of their butts, be made to last
twenty to twenty-five years, Sap shin
giles, which are almost valueless in their
natural state, can easily be treated and
made to outlast even painted shingles o1
the most decay-resisting woods. Thous-
ands of dollars are lost every year by
the so-called "bluing" Of freshly sawed
sap wood lumber. This can be prevent
ed by proper treatment, and at a cost
80 small as to put 1t within the reach
Of the smallest operator.-Pioneer.
Times