A NEW PROCESS FOR THE PROTECTION AND PRES- 

 ERVATION OF STANDING TELEGRAPH AND 



TELEPHONE POLES 



By E. A. Sterling 



m 



[ODERX methods of transporta- 

 Ition and communication have 

 'caused such a drain on the timber 

 resources of the country that high 

 prices and an ultimate exhaustion of 

 certain species grades will be the in- 

 evitable result. The use of wood is 

 universal everywhere, but nowhere is it 

 more strikingly shown than in the 

 enormous number of poles which dot 

 the landscape everywhere, their most 

 general use being for telegraph, tele- 

 phone, trolley, and electric transmission 

 lines. 



The pole lines in the United States 

 approximate eight hundred thousand 

 miles in length, and the number of 

 poles in actual service is not less than 

 thirty-two million. The annual con- 

 sumption for renewals and new lines 

 amounts to nearly four million poles, 

 or nearly five poles per mile per an- 

 num, the actual figures for 1910 being 

 3,870,694. The extent of the drain on 

 the forests which this represents may 

 be judged from the fact that a perfectly 

 stocked German forest produces only 

 250 trees per acre, so that on this basis 

 the poles now standing would represent 

 all of the timber growing on over 130,- 

 000 acres. Actually in this country, 

 considerably less than one hundred 

 poles are cut per acre, so that for the 

 poles now in use forest areas aggre- 

 gating nearly half a million acres have 

 been cut over, and to furnish the poles 

 for renewals some 50,000 additional 

 acres are cut over each year, or at the 

 rate of over 100 acres per day. 



Cedar furnished the material for 

 nearly 03% of the poles renewed in 

 1910; while chestnut, although avail- 

 able only in a limited territory, ranked 

 second with 17%. The supply of cedar 

 is distinctly limited and will soon be 



exhausted, while the wide prevalence 

 of the chestnut bark disease threatens 

 to remove this species from the market 

 within a few years. The maintenance 

 of a cedar pole supply by new growth is 

 not even a remote probability, because 

 of the slow growth of the species. A 

 report of the National Electric Light 

 Association states that thirty-foot cedar 

 poles lasting 14 years have taken about 

 190 years to reach that size, thus it 

 would require 13 growing cedars to 

 continue in service one 30-foot cedar 

 pole. To maintain one 30-foot chestnut 

 pole, even in a healthy growth unaf- 

 fected by the blight, would require four 

 growing trees. These facts indicate 

 clearly the necessity of preserving the 

 poles now in use as well as those used 

 for current renewals. 



The available statistics indicate an 

 average life per pole of from 13 1-2 

 years for cedars to 6 1-2 years for 

 pine ; the general average based on 

 present renewals being about ten years. 

 A report of the German government 

 shows an average life of only 7.7 years 

 on 153,626 untreated poles under ob- 

 servation. Until recently practically all 

 poles in this country were used in their 

 natural state, and great waste has been 

 occasioned by their rapid decay where 

 in contact with the ground. The U. S. 

 Forest Service estimates that, for poles, 

 95% are destroyed by decay, 4% by 

 insects and 1% by mechanical abrasion. 

 In 1910, 825,000, or nearly 25%, re- 

 ceived preservative treatment either be- 

 fore or after purchase, and this should 

 lengthen their life from 50 to 100 per 

 cent. While the treatment of a pole 

 before it is set is advantageous, it adds 

 very materially to the initial cost and 

 will not check the increasing consump- 

 tion until a greater per cent arc treated, 



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