\ ^tl^tN^j;^v:>:v>:vi,xa5x>:*MC'Ws;tiyJiliOTi^^ 



>.- 'MUiWaTOCT ' 



Some Fence Post Figures 



The anuual l>ill for feuce posts in the United States is a large 

 item. Xo census has ever been taken by which the actual number 

 is shown. Irom the nature of the case that is impossible, because 

 probably not more than half of the posts used are bought and sold 

 in markets. Many farmers cut on their own land whnt they need, 

 and no account is kept and no report made. 



A careful estimate is as much as can be expected. The govern- 

 ment report for Iowa, furnishes the basis of such an estimate, for 

 Iowa is a farming state, a large user of posts, and the ratio per 

 acre there can be applied to the farmland of the whole United 

 States, with certain allowances. Tt is shown that the farmers of 

 that state use in round numbers 10,000,000 new posts every year 

 in repairing and building fences, and that the cost of the posts 

 is $1,400,000, with $600,000 additional for setting them. That is 

 a round sum of two million dollars a year. 



The population of Iowa compared with the whole United States 

 is as one to forty; but the ratio of farming population is nearer 

 one to twenty, since Iowa is prei>minently a fanning state. As- 

 suming that as a basis for estimate, it is found that the United 

 States demands 20,000,000 new fence posts a year, at a cost, set 

 in the ground, of approximately $40,000,000. 



The average life of fence posts in Iowa is stated to be fourteen 

 years. There is, however, great difference in the lasting properties 

 of different woods. Osage orange lasts five times as long as willow, 

 and in length of service it heads the list of post timbers in that 

 state. The comparative life of other post timbers in Iowa is shown 

 in the following list, ranging from the longest to the shortest: 

 Red cedar, locust, white oak, northern white cedar (arborvitae), 

 catalpa, black walnut, butternut, red oak, willow. 



In this list red cedar is most expensive and willow cheapest. 

 Th;it rule would not hold everywhere, because the cost of posts in 



different regions varies. Where a timber grows and is plentiful, it 

 is cheap, but it might be expensive where it docs not grow. 



It may be a matter of surprise that catalpa makes a poor showing 

 as a post timber in Iowa. It was once advertised as the coming 

 tree that was to end most of the farmer's timber troubles, and 

 no man knows how many thousands were planted in the Plain 

 states; yet in the supply of posts in Iowa, the wood falls short of 

 one per cent; white oak exceeds forty per cent; even black wal- 

 nut furnishes more posts in that region than catalpa, and butternut 

 is also above it. 



If the Iowa ratio of round to split and sawed posts holds 

 throughout the whole country, it means that more than half of all 

 are used in the roiinil. They are cut from young trees, too small 

 to split or to pass through a sawmill. 



The round post when cut from most woods is peculiarly subject 

 to decay. That is because it is largely sapwood, which is not 

 durable. The cutting of young trees for posts, and using them 

 without preservative treatment, is wasteful. Such trees usually 

 make no more than two or three posts each. Preservative treat- 

 ment will greatly lengthen their period of service. 



Black walnut is generally classed as a durable wood, and that 

 reputation is well. founded when heartwood is used; but small, 

 round walnut posts decay in a very short time. It is because such 

 posts are almost wholly sapwood. Little heartwood forms in wal- 

 nut until the tree attains considerable size. Even if the wood 

 were durable its use for fence posts would be of doubtful economy, 

 because of its greater value for other things. 



Six board feet of lumber as the equivalent of an average fence 

 post is a low estimate, but at that the annual cut of posts in the 

 country equals 1,200,000,000 feet, board measure, or about three per 

 cent of the total sawmill output of lumber. 



\;)iWi;iia5t9^;TO;^::>^TOc;iTOU>;;i>5^^ 



A pamphlet of nearly one hundred pages has just been published 

 by the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station at Ames, showing the 

 uses of wood in that state for manufacturing purposes. The sta- 

 tistics were collected and compiled by John T. Harris, statistician of 

 the United States Forest Service, for the year 1911, and the report 

 was printed by the state, with a chapter on the timber resources of 

 Iowa added by G. B. Maedonald, state forester, and another by Nel- 

 son C. Brown on the white pine in Iowa. 



Iowa is essentially an agricultural state, about ninety per cent of 

 its area being taken up with more than 217,000 farms. Probably 

 one-fifth of the state was forested when white men first reached it, 

 the principal growth being along the rivers, though the forests often 

 reached back many miles into the prairies. The finest sycamore, wal- 

 nut, and oak were soon cut and timber of that class has almost disap- 

 peared; in fact, today practically nothing of the original forest re- 

 mains. Much timber has been planted, however, some as woodlots and 

 some as windbreaks and shelterbelts. 



Most of the material obtained from Iowa forests goes to supply 

 the ever increasing domestic needs of the woodlot owners, and is not 

 accounted for in this report of the annual consumption of wood 

 for factory products. Iowa still produces timber, but by far the 

 greater part of the wood used by manufacturers comes from the 

 outside. The state's wood-using industries are important, and Iowa's 

 f >restry de[iartment is giving more attention to plans for protecting 

 ■ rid further developing such valuable assets as the woodlot and the 

 iidustries depending on nood. 



In quantity the white pine used by Iowa manufacturers equals 

 nearly any four other woods. In price per thousand feet it is ex- 

 ceeded by twenty-three species. The highest average price paid for 



any species was for 5,000 feet of Circassian walnut at $300 per 

 thousand. The cheapest was black willow at $14. Compared with 

 prices in most other regions no very cheap wood is used in the state. 

 Some of the states which buy lumber for manufacturing purposes 

 at a lower rate than Iowa pays are: Missouri, one wood; Arkansas, 

 ten woods; Michigan, ten; Tennessee, twelve; and Louisiana and 

 Mississippi, nineteen each. The average price for the entire quantity 

 of wood purchased by Iowa manufacturers was considerably above 

 the average in most states. This was because Iowa is not in a tim- 

 ber region and also because the kind of manufacturing carried on 

 demands a good class of raw material. Still another reason for the 

 high cost of the wood may be found in the fact that much of it is 

 bought in rather small amounts and retail markets are patronized. 

 The woodworkers of Iowa are not generally in the business for the 

 purpose of working up and disposing of an abundance of material 

 that is seeking a market, but rather to supply a market which is 

 active in its demands. Iowa manufacturers of wood products sell 

 largely to home iieople. 



Less than three per cent of the lumber and logs used grow in the 

 state. Iowa is an interesting battleground between the southern, 

 western, and Lake states manufacturers of lumber, and is so situated 

 territorially that it receives competitive bids from regions on all 

 .«ides. It draws from a wide range of species. Freight rates from 

 the extreme West to Iowa are not prohibitively above rates from the 

 extreme South. The result is that very interesting competition has 

 developed between certain species of wood for certain purposes. 

 For example, though the average price of redwood in Iowa is about 

 $10 above the price of cypress, yet the California wood is so easily 

 handled in the factory and is so free from defects that many estab- 



—23— 



