1906.] FOREST SERVICE FOR FARMERS. 211 



It does not occur to him that he is leaving inferior trees, which 

 he will not want, to take the place of those which he removes. 

 In other words, the weed trees, as the foresters call them, are 

 left — the useless trees, or trees that crowd out and displace 

 good trees. The result is very much as though the farmer 

 went into his garden and kept pulling his vegetables and al- 

 lowing the weeds to grow up and fill the groimd. The work 

 which the Forest Service is trying to do for the farmer is to 

 teach him to cultivate his woodlot, to learn about his trees, and 

 about the different requirements of different species, and to 

 make the land yield its fullest possible supply. 



The question of timber supply is a matter of vital im- 

 portance to the entire country. The railroads, for instance, 

 the means of transportation, are absolutely dependent upon 

 the forests for their ties. Every railroad tie laid in the track 

 — and engineers have foimd no substitute which they are 

 willing to accept in place of the wooden tie — every tie laid in 

 the track all over the country requires two trees growing in 

 the forest in order to keep it there. 



The present price of railroad ties of the best quality bears 

 no proportion at all to the nearness of the exhaustion of the 

 supply, and the railroads know this very well. Some of the 

 most important railroads in the country are going into the busi- 

 ness of raising ties for themselves because they fear the time 

 may come when they cannot buy the ties that they need. But 

 tie production is going to be one of the most profitable em- 

 ployments of the woodlots. White oak ties are the ties which 

 the railroads prefer, and I suppose that the supply of white 

 oak ties is going to be substantially at an end before very many 

 years have passed. The white oak is too good a tree ; we can 

 not afford to use it for ties. A white oak tree which can be 

 bought in this country in the region of its best growth for a 

 dollar and a half, in Germany would bring perhaps a hundred or 

 a hundred and fifty dollars ; sometimes even two hundred dol- 

 lars are paid for a single tree. An acre of white oak is sold 

 sometimes in Germany for over two thousand dollars, and it it 

 is not at all unlikely that our prices will, before very many of us 

 are old men, be but little below the prices of timber in Germany. 



The capacity of the country to consume timber is almost 

 beyond any credible form of statement. You may think that 

 the substitution of other materials will diminish the need of 



