30 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Need of Car Shops in Canada. 



For years car sliortngp lias been a biiEbear to 

 shippers In western Canada and the supply lias 

 liecn steadily growing more Inadequate. The 

 balldlng of a new transportation line— the 

 Canadian Trunk I'aelfie now makes the build- 

 ing of ear shops somewhere In west central 

 Canada Imperative. The railroads claim that 

 no fault In the matter can be laid ou them as 

 they are willing and anxious to buy rolling 

 stock, but the shops of Canada and the United 

 States, although run at their capacity, are not 

 able to turn out enough cars to supply tlie 

 demand. 



Canada has In operation 21,.10O miles of inil- 

 way, and but SS,000 cars are available, an 

 average of four per mile. It is estimated thai 

 eight ears per mile of railway are necessary to 

 handle all the freight. If this be so, there will 

 be a market for 80,000 additional cars. If. how- 

 ever, the new roads now under constiuction are 

 taken Into consideration, at least 100,000 cars 

 will be needed within the next five years he- 

 sides the replacement of old cars. It is said 

 that the average life of a freight car is ten 

 years. 



The building of cars has been tried in Winni- 

 peg and the result has been satisfactory, says 

 .1. E. Jones in a consular report. Other places 

 have been considered but none meet the require- 

 ments as well as Winnipeg. Some time ago the 

 Canadian Northern started the building of cars 

 in the company's .shops, and turned out 100 

 cars, including coaches, box cars and cabooses. 

 The Canadian Pacific, which operates extensive 

 shops there, does not make any new cars, the 

 entire space being taken up with repair work. 

 It is understood tliat the company is contem- 

 plating the erection of an addition to its plant 

 to be devoted to this work. Winnipeg has now 

 in successful operation five iron works and 

 foundries, a rolling mill, several brass foundries 

 and other industries, and is undoubtedly the 

 most favorable point for the much-needed car 

 shops. 



New Lumber Operations in the Philippines, 



A story of enterprise and industry and prom- 

 ise of large material reward Is told in dis- 

 patches from Manila, P. I., which chronicle the 

 opening of another important industry that will 

 bring prosperity to many people and contribute 

 to the wealth of the islands. 



The Tayabas .Sawmill and Lumber Company 

 has manufactured its first log at its Giiinayaii 

 gan, Tayabas, operations, and has contracted 

 with railroad interests now engaged in con- 

 struction work, for nearly 600,000 board feet 

 of timber to be delivered during October: its 

 total orders on file for delivery when the mill 

 opened were more than 1,000.000 feet, to be mar- 

 keted in Manila and Ilong Kong. Sr. Aivaro Bert- 

 ran de Lis of Manila is general manager of the com- 

 pany, and it is backed by local capital. Up to 

 date at least 133.000 pesos have been expended 

 in the work of development, and three sailing 

 boats, a launch and hoisting engines have been 

 purchased in addition to regular equipment. 



The concession granted this company is locat- 

 ed on the Bay of Eagay. near Lucena, and 

 comprises about 200 square miles, believed to 

 contain some of the most valuable timber on 

 the islands. Four Americans and a Spaniard 

 occupy responsible positions, and over 1,200 na- 

 tives are employed in cutting (lie ymber and 

 around the plant. The natives in the district 

 about the concession are entirely supported by 

 the labor provided, and Sr. de Lis writes that 

 since the company's invasion the price of rice, 

 the staple article of food, has fallen from 12 

 to 8 pesos a sack in some markets, owing to 

 the fact that the company supplies it to the 

 laborers at wholesale rates. Thus in several 

 ways the natives are reaping benefits from the 

 work. 



Mr, Allen, the American superintendent, is 

 considered one of the best lumber operators 



In the Islands. When he first took charge 

 of construction for the Tayabas company he 

 thought ninety days would possibly see a com- 

 pletion of the work, but succeeded in finishing 

 it in considerably less time, tlius accomplishing 

 what Is considered a difficult feat In the Philip- 

 pines, where severe handicaps must always be 

 overcome. 



From now on the conduct of the enterprise 

 should be comparatively easy, since the labor 

 is there, markets are already provided, and 

 the timbers of the Islands are noted the world 

 over for their abundance and value. 



Forestry at Harvard. 



Harry A. Freiberg, president of the Freiberg 

 Lumber Company of Cincinnati, forwards the 

 Kkcoiid a copy of The Harvard Bulletin of Oc- 

 tober 23. containing an Interesting article on the 

 steps the university is taking In the interests 

 of forestry and preservation of the standing 

 timber of the country. It states that Harvard 

 University has received a gift of about 2,000 

 acres of valuable timberland, which is offered as 

 a special adjunct to the Division of Forestry 

 and therefore as part of the equipment of the 

 Graduate School of Applied Science. The land 

 is situated in Petersham, Mass., and the larger 

 part of it has been owned by James W. Brooks, 

 with whom the idea of perpetuating the forest 

 growth for the benefit of the comuuinity origi- 

 nated. The woodland about Petersham has long 

 been a source of distinction and prosperity to 

 the town, and its preservation and full utiliza- 

 tion seemed to insure a continuance of these 

 benefits. To this end Mr. Brooks offered his 

 tract to Harvard University for the use of the 

 Division of Forestry at a price much below its 

 estimated selling value. At the same time own- 

 ers of neighboring land, Messrs. Edwin C. Dex- 

 ter, Joseph C. Smith, Henry S. Bennett. Charles 

 S. Waldo, William Simes and J. J. Migginson. 

 and Mr. Brooks himself, offered to give outright 

 adjoining lots and holdings which would round 

 out and protect the reservation. These gifts, 

 amounting to between 200 and 300 acres, were 

 contingent upon the acquisition of the main 

 tract. This acquisition has now been assured by 

 the generosity of John S. Ames of Boston, who 

 has given the university the money needed for 

 the purchase of the land and $5,000 more for 

 equipment and repairs of building. 



The significance of this valuable gift is thus 

 described by Prof. R. T. Fisher, head of the 

 Division of Forestry : 



The forest included in this gift comprises 

 what is probably the best body of timber now to 

 be found on an equal area in Massachusetts. 

 There arc 10,000,000 board feet of merchant- 

 able lumber at present standing on the tract, 

 nine-tenths of it white pine. This fine stand, 

 however, occupies only about half the total 

 area, the rest of which is covered by various 

 types of hardwood growth, younger crops of 

 pine and some open ground. The lay of the 

 land, the features of which are a stretch of 

 three miles of the Swift River valley, the basins 

 of two ponds and the slopes of the well-known 

 Prospect Hill, makes the forest cover peculiarly 

 rich and interesting, and some fifteen miles of 

 excellent wood roads provide access to almost 

 any portion of the tract. Several buildings, one 

 of them a sort of dormitory built by a religious 

 community, afford lodgment both for students 

 and instructors and for the managing force. 

 Tile greatest advantage, however, from the point 

 of view both of forestry instruction and of prac- 

 tical lumbering, lies in the arrangement of the 

 age-groups or generations of timber. It so hap- 

 pens that stands of various ages, from the small 

 sapling to the mature tree, are almost equally 

 represented on separate acres. This condition, 

 taken with the ready accessibility and saleability 

 of the timber, constitutes a unique opportunity 

 for the successful practice of forestry. An ap- 

 proach to a continuous yield can be secured with- 

 out cutting more than a small proportion of the 

 whole area in any one year, and little by little 



the forest can be so organized as to offer an 

 Increasingly valuable demonstration of practical 

 ami scientific management. 



The Division of Forestry, as a part of the 

 new Graduate School of .\pplied Science, will 

 supervise the running of the Petersham forest 

 and conduct a large part of its Instruction on 

 the spot. It win be the policy to carry on 

 regular logging operations and other woods 

 work looking toward the most productive 

 handling of the forest, and In connection there- 

 with to teach the elements and principles of 

 technical forestry. So far as the business man- 

 agement goes, a certain portion of the mature 

 timber will annually or perloiilcally be cut under 

 the direction of the division and according to 

 the method indicated by the condition of the 

 particular stand. In addition, younger portions 

 of the forest will gradually be brought into good 

 growing condition l)y improvement cuttings, and 

 tile reproduction of blank and cut-over areas will 

 be provided for cillier by planting or by natural 

 seeding. Ail tlicse operations will be part of a 

 general working plan, the chief purpose of which 

 is the profitable and practical utilization of the 

 wood crop. Beginning with aiiout three hundred 

 thousand hoard feet per annum, it will be pos- 

 ible in the end to cut an annual yield of nearly 

 half a million board feet. In other words, the 

 bulk of the forest will represent as high a de- 

 gree of forestry as is in this country feasible or 

 financially justifiable. Selected areas, however, 

 will be set apart for the purposes of research 

 and the exemplification of various methods of 

 reproduction cuttings, thinnings, studies of 

 growth, and so on, which are practiced in Europe 

 and desirable for students to know, but which 

 are not usually applicable to American condi- 

 tions. Thus the function of the whole tract, 

 from the point of view of the professional stu- 

 dent, might be compared to that of the hospital 

 in medical study or of the mine in mining en- 

 gineering : an actual working example on a lib- 

 eral scale of the business in which the forester 

 expects employment, accompanied, in the case 

 of the forest, by abundant chance for the study 

 of the finer and more theoretic points of the 

 science. 



From the purely technical and education side 

 the opportunities at Petersham are no less re- 

 markable. According to the probable arrange- 

 ment of the curriculum, students who enter the 

 Graduate School of Applied Science to study for- 

 estry will be in residence at Petersham during 

 a considerable part of the year. There they will 

 take up in the first of their regular two years' 

 course, and largely in the field, all their ele- 

 mentary work, including tree botany, the theory 

 and practice of forest mensuration and the whole 

 subject of silviculture. This will lead them 

 directly to their last year's work, which is 

 mainly devoted to lumbering, forest engineering 

 and the study of forest production as applied to 

 actual problems. The diseases of trees and other 

 forms of injury, and the history of forest pol- 

 icy in the various countries, will also form part 

 of the work. In the course of all this training 

 the students will have constant recourse. In 

 problems and demonstrations, > to the actual con- 

 ditions to which their reading and lectures ap- 

 ply — and that, too, with the minimum waste 

 of time, and under the supremely beneficial in- 

 fluence of a prolonged common residence apart 

 from outside distractions. They will secure In 

 combination the advantages of the fjerman 

 "meisterschule." with its provision of practical 

 experience under direction, and of the Univer- 

 sity forest school with its broad attention to 

 theory and principle. 



The largest cargo of oak taken from Toledo. 

 O., in many years was loaded upon the schooner 

 Ceylon recently. It consisted of 50,000 cubic 

 feet, valued at $20,000. The timber will be 

 shipped to London, England. Such cargoes, and 

 even much larger ones, were not uncommon In 

 earlier years, but they will never be handled 

 again, owing to the rapid depletion of the oak 

 supply, and the high cost of the wood. 



J 



