HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



somewhat delayed schedules. Arrangements have been made to 

 establish boat service between Memjjhis and Madison and between 

 Memphis and Helena in the event the western lines are put out 

 of commission so that there may not be a complete tying up of 

 westbound traflSc as was the case last year. 



"The extent to which outside lumber interests will be inter- 

 fered with will depend almost if not altogether upon the manner 

 in which the levees hold. Large lumber manufacturing firms at 

 Wilson, Proctor, Marked Tree and other points in Arkansas last 

 year had their plants badly damaged and suffered heavy loss 

 through the overflow of their lumber. This was the direct result 

 of the breaking of the St. Francis levee at so many points, notably 

 Golden Lake, near Wilson, Modoc, Wyanoke and other points which 

 filled the St. Francis basin with flood waters. If the levees hold 

 this year those interests which were so badly damaged last year 

 Will doubtless escape with only minor loss. Thus, from the stand- 

 point of outside lumber interests, the outlook is regarded as de- 

 cidedlj' more favorable than last year. 



"The levee at Beulah, Miss., where a serious crevasse occurred 

 last year and where the flood waters of the earlier rise in the 

 Mississippi this year did considerable damage to lumber and other 

 interests, has been repaired to such an extent that it is believed by 

 levee interests that it will hold. The Illinois Central took the 

 matter in hand a short time ago, built a railroad to the break and 

 poured thousands of tons of crushed stone into the crevasse, fol- 

 lowed by an equally large amount of dirt. Work is still in prog- 

 ress and there are yet a number of days before the crest of the 

 rise will go so far south as Beulah. In the meantime every pos- 

 sible effort is being put forth to further prepare the new embank- 

 ment for the protecting service it is to perform." 



No considerable damage resulted from the recent floods and 

 storms at Nashville, although there was more or less timber de- 

 stroyed at different points and the high waters interfered with the 

 operation of mills on river banks and with hauling over rural roads. 

 The amount of rebuilding which will necessarily result from the 

 storm damage will naturally benefit the lumber trade, both whole- 

 sale and retail. 



At Cincinnati the many manufacturing plants along the Mill- 

 creek valley were either destroyed or so badly damaged as to put 

 them completely out of business for weeks, and business was 

 completely paralyzed. Lumber interests at all these points have 

 been heavy sufferers. Most of the stock in the valley has been 

 swept awa}^ and millions of feet of all kinds of building material 

 will be needed for reconstruction work when rebuilding commences. 

 The railroads have also been hit hard, most of their bridges over 

 the many streams having been washed away, and all of the avail- 

 able timber in this city has been bought up by them for the con- 

 struction of temporary bridges just as soon as the Ohio river re- 

 cedes so far as to make the work possible. The highest stage of 

 the river was 69 feet 8 inches — just lacking 2 feet 1 inch of 

 equaling the highest water ever known here, in 1884, when it was 

 71 feet 9 inches. The water was almost up to Third street, the 

 entire west end being completely under water, as was also the east 

 end of the city, while many of the smaller towns across the river 

 in Kentucky were completely submerged, only house tops or chim- 

 neys showing where Dayton, Ky., used to te. 



The lumber interests at Cincinnati, with few exceptions, were 

 out of business, the big west end yards being probably the worst 

 off. At many of these yards lumbermen, knowing that a high 

 stage of water was inevitable, constructed booms around the yards 

 and thus saved their property, none of which was lost so far as 

 can be learned at this time, although many of the lumber piles 

 floated and upset. Some of the yards were pretty well tangled up 

 and will require more or less reconstruction. There is not likely 

 to be much loss of property to lumbermen on account of the ex- 

 traordinary precautions taken. 



H-4RDW00D Record 's correspondent at Columbus, O., says that 

 the unprecedented flood which swept Ohio during the latter part 

 of March had the effect of paralyzing the hardwood trade in cen- 

 tral Ohio. Mail was cut off entirely for almost a week and orders 



consequently were infrequent. Eailroads were out of commission 

 for some time, and it will require weeks for them to resume their 

 usual state of affairs. Cars loaded with lumber were swept away 

 and lost, and the market in every way was demoralized. 



Lumbermen were powerless to help themselves under the cir- 

 cumstances. Business has not yet become normal, although one 

 of the effects of the flood was a good demand for many items 

 in the hardwood trade. Railroads especially, which suffered the 

 loss of many bridges and trestles, purchased all of the timbei- that 

 they could secure. It is estimated that the loss to the lumber and 

 allied trades in Columbus is well over $50,000. 



The floods did not touch Toledo hea^aly. There was some raising 

 of the water above normal, of course, and some of the lumber 

 yards situated along the banks of the Maumee river and of Swan 

 creek suffered some losses, although by no means heavy ones. 

 There were some instances of valuable lumber being corralled by 

 grappling hooks, but for the most part the lumber was in good 

 shape and practically all the loss will be occasioned by the neces- 

 sity for repiling. 



Outside of Toledo, at Defiance, Napoleon, TifSn, Fremont, Piqua, 

 Dayton and other cities, the damage was greater and some large 

 lumber firms have suffered severely, almost the entire stock being 

 lost in a number of instances. Even when the lumber was not 

 carried off the losses on hardwood lumber was great owing to the 

 deterioration of quality caused by the sediment and sand which 

 ground into the timber and made cutting extremely difficult, the 

 sediment dulling the knives. 



The tying up of railroad systems has been the most disconcert- 

 ing thing with the Toledo concerns, as shipments have been refused 

 by the greater share of the railroads here until within the past 

 few days, when conditions have again resumed a normal attitude. 



Thousands of dollars' worth of damage was done to hardwood 

 lumber throughout the district, but something can be saved by 

 repiling. The ultimate result of the losses will be an advantage to 

 the lumber trade generally, as thousands of homes throughout the 

 flooded districts will have to be repaired and rebuilt, and this in 

 addition to the building due to the natural growth. 



"The Oldest Living Thing" 



The story of the great Mexican C3'"press tree at Santa Maria del 

 Tule is again going the rounds, under the caption, "The Oldest 

 Living Thing in the World." It is said to have a trunk over 

 forty feet in diameter, and estimates place its age at from 5,000 

 to 6,000 years. Nobody knows how old it is, as there is no history 

 of its youth. The annual rings have never been counted. The tree 

 has been known by white people a couple hundred years, and that 

 is as far back as there is definite information. It has been pro- 

 posed to bore into the trunk and take out a plug extending from 

 the bark inward a couple of feet, and by counting the rings, esti- 

 mate the rest, and thus ascertain how old the tree is. 



Nothing reliable can be found out that way. It is well known 

 that rate of growth for a large tree has seldom been uniform 

 throughout its whole life. A young trunk nearly always grows 

 much faster than an old one. It is equally impracticable to deter- 

 mine the age of one tree by comparing its size with another whose 

 age is known. That is what some propose doing with the big tree 

 in Mexico; in fact, it has been done already, and argument has been 

 made that since one cypress four feet in diameter was 670 years 

 old, the one in Mexico, which is forty feet through, must be ten 

 times as old. Experience has shown that no such ratio exists. 



Coming back again to the big Mexican cypress, it may not be as 

 old as its size indicates. The appearance of the tree itself is the 

 strongest evidence of that, for some who have seen it say it con- 

 sists of a clump of cypresses, once separate trees, but by enlarging 

 they have grown together, and now form a ribbed and fluted mass 

 which is one trunk but once consisted of several. If that is the 

 case, it is evident that the tree as it stands is no older than the 

 original trees which grew together in the process of forming it. 

 The estimated age, therefore, of .5,000 or 6.000 years should be 

 divided by five or six, at least. 



