36 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



the Metropolitan Street Eailway Company of 

 New York made a test covering several years, 

 which proved satisfactory. But these few 

 examples cannot be regarded as final, for 

 there have been instances when creosoted 

 blocks have given poor results, although there 

 is little doubt that they may be traced to 

 poor preservative treatment, careless selec- 

 tion of wood, or faulty construction. 



While wood preservation has in general at- 

 tained greater perfection in Europe than in 

 America, our treatment of paving blocks is 

 more thorough than the English method and 

 American longleaf pine is a denser, harder 

 wood, with greater resisting powers than the 

 European variety employed. The Bush 

 street bridge in Chicago carries as heavy 

 traffic as any in that city. It has two twen- 

 ty-foot roadways, paved in '99, one with 

 creosoted longleaf blocks, the other with the 

 same wood uncreosoted. The former after 

 seven years, is still in good condition, and 



METHOD OF CUTTING PLANKS FKOM LOGS. 



bids fair to last several more, while the lat- 

 ter had to be renewed in 1902. This and 

 other evidence should overthrow the tradi- 

 tional doctrine of the limited value of creo- 

 sote as preservative treatment for wood 

 paving. 



In the United States the timber is impreg- 

 nated by the vacuum-pressure method, closeii 

 cylinders about G feet in diameter by lOu 

 in length are u.sed, and the amount of oil 

 usually injected is IC to 22 pounds per cubic 

 foot; this apparently excessive amount may 

 seem extravagant but inasmuch as paving 

 blocks are subjected to more exacting condi- 

 tions than any other creosoted products, ex- 

 perts do not consider it so, believing that 

 blocks so treated will yield better returns in 

 the investment even at the increased cost. 

 In Paris the vacuum pressure is only now 

 being introduced ; there the blocks are treated 

 by merely soaking a short time in an open 

 tank, the amount of oil injected being very 

 small, and results correspondingly unsatis- 

 factory. 



To give the best service wood block pave- 

 ment requires a concrete foundation five to 

 six inches thick for heavy tratfic. Portland 

 cement-mortar makes the best top cushion 

 fnr the foundation. The blocks are rigidly 



inspected as to imperfections in sawing, 

 knots, decay, defective edges, squareness of 

 angle and thoroughness of impregnation. 

 Sapwood is entirely excluded by most wood- 

 paving specifications, but under existing mar- 

 ket conditions it is practically impossible to 

 obtain strictly all-heart southern pine; com- 

 mercial long-leaf southern pine is also seldom 

 free from an admixture of loblolly. The 

 true longleaf has usually so narrow a sap- 

 wood that it could be overlooked without dan- 

 ger to the pavement, but in loblolly the sap- 

 wood is often very wide; still in this species 

 it has been proved that the sapwood under 

 equal conditions of moisture is as strong as 

 the heart, so that when effective seasoning 

 of paving material is assured, the prohibition 

 of sapwood is needless and should be omitted 

 from specifications. A more pertinent clause 

 would be one excluding fast-grown timber — 

 say all showing less than eight rings to the 

 inch — since it is the porous wood resulting 

 from fast growth, rather than sap, which un- 

 fits timber for paving purposes. 



There is great difference of opinion as to 

 the proper angle at which wood blocks should 

 be laid, as to joints, proper fillers, top dress- 

 ings, etc. While these are important phases 

 of contractors' work, it is in the care of 

 pavement after it is laid, that American 



cities fail most seriously. Once laid it is 

 expected to take care of itself, while in Eu- 

 rope the streets are cleaned with regularity 

 and care, being flushed with water frequently 

 and never allowed to dry out as they do here 

 during long hot spells in summer. 



To learn the results of actual service on 

 woods that manufacturers seemed unlikely to 

 try under existing public prejudice against 

 unproved woods, the Forest Service recently 

 undertook the laying of an experimental 

 pavement in which a number of untried 

 woods should be laid beside those already 

 standard. This experiment was carried out 

 in co-operation with the city of llinneapolis, 

 which selected the area and laid the pave- 

 ment, and with prominent creosoting, quarry 

 and lumber companies, which donated the 

 material necessary. The accompanying dia- 

 gram shows the plan of this work. It is ex- 

 pected that eventually it will prove a valuable 

 source of information as to what species of 

 wood may be laid, the heartwood and sap- 

 wood question, length of blocks, angle of 

 courses, and other points involved in laying 

 satisfactory pavements, and that it will 

 assist in bringing about the introduction of 

 other suitable and available woods to sup- 

 plement those now in use, though of course 

 results will not be complete for several years. 



Millions for Tribute but not 

 Cent for Defense. 



One 



The people of West Virginia thoroughly 

 appreciate at least one phase of the forestry 

 question. In a recent article in Forestry and 

 Irrigation — herewith quoted — F. M. Eaton of 

 Richwood presents their side in a manner 

 that shows he knows whereof he speaks: 



Somewhere among the dead bills presented 

 to the last Congress of the United States lies 

 a bill — the White Mountain- Appalachian bill. 



Does the ordinary reader and voter of this 

 country know that it has been there, and is 

 there? Or, if he knows it, does he know what 

 it is for? 



I doubt that very many can say yes to 

 either question. 



Down here in the West Virginia moun- 

 tains, where the water goes in a terrible hurry 

 on its way to the Atlantic Ocean and the 

 Gulf of Mexico, if one knows the purpose of 

 the bill one gets an idea of its value. 



Down these mountain sides, where the angle 

 of 45 degrees is a common occurrence, and 

 "up and down" pretty common, the rain 

 water slides as though it were an express 

 train making up lost time. In the original 

 forest it has its beaten track of one large 

 or small ravine bottom, full of large and 

 small boulders, fallen tree trunks, and debris 

 from the trees above, with the banks held 

 by fern roots and roots of bushes, checking, 

 in large measure, the rush of the water. On 

 the adjacent hillsides are the bushes, ferns 

 and dead branches, and now and then the 

 dead trunks of former trees. These all tend 



to moderate the flow of the water and dissi- 

 pate it. 



Now go on the tract that has been lum- 

 bered over and then burned. There your 

 ravine bottoms are the same, all but the 

 bushes and ferns on the banks, but up on the 

 hillsides are furrows by the dozen; and the 

 deeper and broader they get — why, the deeper 

 and broader still they get; and they are con- 

 tinually multiplying themselves. Now, there 

 is nothing but the bare earth to check the 

 force of the water, and small streams gather 

 in every little depression, to dig it deeper and 

 broader, week by week, and month by month. 

 In union there is strength, for water as well 

 as anything else, and it tells its story here. 



Every little drop of water gets a little soil. 

 Lots of little drops of water get a pebble. 

 Lots more of little drops of water, with their 

 multiplying amount of soil, get a stone; and 

 still more of the little drops of water get a 

 small boulder. Down they go, merrily, to the 

 stream, down goes the stream to the river, 

 then to the ocean or gulf; and with them, 

 eventually, the soil, the pebble, the stone and 

 the small boulder. 



The stone and small boulder may go in 

 pieces, yet they go ; and on the way they fill 

 the streams and rivers. The White Mountain- 

 Appalachian bill was drawn up for the cx- 

 ])ress purpose of preventing this destruction, 

 by cutting the forest in such a way that the 

 soil will always be protected from this ero- 

 sion, and a plentiful supply of trees will be 



