WOODS AND THEIR DESTRUCTIVE FUNGI. 615 



treated railway-ties in the road-bed are of necessity in about as favor- 

 able conditions for the growth of the fungi as could be selected, and 

 consequent decay is not only probable but certain and rapid. Ties of 

 the most durable woods, as a rule, only resist decay for from eight to 

 ten years, while inferior qualities only last from four to seven years. 



The consumption of ties by our railway system will closely approxi- 

 mate eighty million the present year for repairs, and, as these require 

 to be cut from special trees from thirty to sixty years old, ten to six- 

 teen inches in diameter, will take many trees which, in as many more 

 years, would yield from six to eight times as much timber. This rapid 

 reduction of the prospective timber-supply is one of the serious phases 

 of the question, and is causing grave apprehension as to the future 

 sources of ties, not only to the railway officials, but to all persons who 

 look to the general welfare of the country. Transportation now is so 

 intimately connected with every business, and its cost so much a part 

 of tfee price of nearly all articles, and especially of food-supplies, that 

 the increasing cost of ties becomes a subject of national importance. 

 The American Forestry Congress is urging the planting of trees and 

 the better care of existing forests. While the measures it urges may 

 help the supply of timber twenty-five or thirty years hence, they can 

 not meet the exigencies of the case in the mean time. Railway-ties 

 only last from one fourth to one tenth of the time required to grow 

 them, and the forests are now being rapidly cut to furnish the supply. 

 Very few of the railway companies are in a position to grow their ties ; 

 but, as consumers of such vast quantities of timber annually, they can 

 take more effective measures to stop the growth of the fungi and check 

 the enormous wastes of timber now taking place. 



One important step, when storing ties and timber before using, 

 w r ould be to put down blocks or timbers for each end of the piles to 

 rest upon, leaving an air-space underneath, and pile the ties an inch 

 apart. This would permit a circulation of air and prevent the growth 

 of mycelia, which is so frequent on the first, second, and third layers, 

 when placed directly upon the ground. When this is not done, the 

 fungi grow as much in the ties, in two or three months in the summer, 

 as they would in one or two years in the road-bed. 



There is one phase of decay in ties which has been generally over- 

 looked ; in fact, it would not be noticed except by making special ex- 

 aminations. A slight fermentation, which would only soften or make 

 the fiber brittle under a rail or around a spike, becomes of greater im- 

 portance in ties than in beams which have a large factor of safety. 

 Ties of many species of w r ood, when sound, will cut under the rails 

 to some extent, and the rate will be much increased, in case the fibers 

 are softened or weakened by fermentations ; this I found to be the 

 fact in several hundred chestnut, oak, and yellow-pine ties which had 

 been removed from the track, on account of abrasion under the rails, 

 and of mechanical injury by repeated spiking. Either side of the rails 



