July 10, 1917 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



(Continued from page 23) 



2. Permanent farmers raise the value o£ the farms they purchase and 

 enhance the value of the lands adjoining. 



3. They bring their relatives and friends by talk or correspondence, if 

 satisfied settlers. 



4. They facilitate the building of churches, schools and good roads 

 because they demand these essentials. 



5. They develop the community spirit which is so necessary to per- 

 manent success. 



Secretary Stonebraker said iu conclusion that the association, real- 

 izing the need of settlers, was going after farmers iu every part of 

 the eountrj' and that it did not propose to cease its efforts until 

 it had brought in enough settlers ' ' to assist in making our alluvial 



lands what they deserve and were intended to be — the garden spot 

 of the world." 



The attendance at this meeting was quite encouraging but little 

 business was transacted. In fact, the only action taken was the 

 adoption of resolutions memorializing the Mississippi legislature 

 to provide a permanent endowment for the experiment station at 

 Stoneville, Miss., and the endorsement of the candidacy of Dr. 

 Tait Butler, editor of the Progressive Farmer, Memphis, as As- 

 sistant Secretary of Agriculture of the United States. Members 

 were requested to write their senators and representatives in his 

 behalf in order that the delta section and the South may have a 

 representative in the agricultural department at Washington. 



Knees for Ships 



The wooden ships now in course of construction for the govern- 

 ment call for about 300 knees each. These are crooked pieces of 

 timber, so named because of their shape, and they are used as braces 

 to give extra strength to the ship 's frame. Some knees are hewed 

 from the junction of trunks with large branches, others from junc- 

 tion of roots and trunks. The southern live oak was formerly much 

 used as knees for large ships, and it may come into use again. Those 

 knees are formed by branch and trunk. For smaller vessels the 

 root of the northern tamarack tree has long been in demand. This 

 knee is formed by a crook in the root itself. The crook is a natural 

 form due to the soil in which the tree grows. The favorite habitat 

 of tamarack is the silted-up bed of a former lake, or the "made 

 land" above an old beaver dam. Such soil is loose down a couple 

 of feet, where it rests on a stratum of hard clay or rock. The 

 tamarack's root descends perpendicularly to the hard stratum, and 

 not being able to go down further, it turns at right angles and thus 

 forms the natural crook which, when properly hewed, serves admir- 

 ably as a ship knee. Tamarack is a very strong wood and that adds 

 much to the value of the root in shipbuilding. 



Taking Stock of Black Locust 



Acting under military orders, a census or inventory is being made 

 of the black locust timber in West Virginia. The work is in charge 

 of C. E. Andrews, at the United States engineers, and timber owners 

 in that state have been asked to help collect information of the amount 

 and location of locust timber. This material is wanted for tree nails 

 in building the wooden ships. From 20,000 to 40,000 wooden pins 

 are needed for each ship, the pins being from 24 to 40 inches long. 

 The total number will run far into the millions and they will con- 

 stitute a heavy drain on locust timber, which is not abundant. 



This species' highest development is iu West Virginia. It grows 

 naturally in the surrounding states, and by planting in many other 

 states; but only in a few localities can the locust trees be depended 

 upon to attain large size and good form. Outside of its natural range 

 it falls a victim to the locust borer, an insect thai literally devours 

 trunks and branches. But in the mountains of West Virginia the 

 insect is less destructive, and iu some of tliose regions is unknown, 

 and from there will come the timber for the tree nails which the ship 

 builders must have. 



The locust trees iu some of the rich mountain coves in West Virginia 

 attain diameters of three feet and heights of eighty feet. However, 

 that size is unusual, even there ; but in most regions where the borer 

 gets in its work, a good locust trunk a foot in diameter is unusual. 



Immense quantities of locust tree nails were taken out of West Vir- 

 ginia in the period following the Civil war. It was an important 

 industry there for a while, and many of the largest trees were cut 

 then. The fifty years which have elapsed since has been time suffi- 

 cient for much growth ; but the farmers have cut a great deal of this 

 valuable wood for fence posts, and vehicle manufacturers have bought 

 it for buggy hubs, with the result that the tree-nail cutters must now 

 scout far and wide to get the needed supplies. 



Locust is wanted because it is extremely strong, very hard, and it is 

 as durable as any wood that grows in the United States. Honey locust, 

 though '.cry hard, strong, and durable, does not measure up to black 



locust in any essential respect. These two species belong to the same 

 family — the pea family — but are quite distinct. Black locust is 

 SobinUi yseudacacia, and honey locust is Gleditsia tricanthos. It is 

 from the bloom of black locust that bees make poisonous honey, and 

 the inner bark is poisonous to horses that gnaw it. The British claimed 

 that the smashing victories won by American frigates in the war of 

 1812 were due to the black locust timbers in the ships — the stanchions 

 and braces which stood like steel under the impact of cannon balls. 

 Let it be hoped that the black locust from the West Virginia moun- 

 tains will contribute so greatly to the strength and efficiency of our 

 ships in this war that success and victory will crown the efforts of our 

 vessels that put out to sea. 



The Farm Woodlot 



The Forest Service has published bulletin 481 dealing with the 

 woodlots on farms as a present and prospective source of lumber, 

 fuel, and other forest products. The bulletin was prepared from 

 data secured by E. H. Frothingham during a thorough investigation 

 of the subject in the territory including the eastern half of the 

 United States and extending as far west as Minnesota, Iowa, Mis- 

 souri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. 



Woodlots vary in size from 5 to ISO acres, the smaller being in the 

 eastern states, the larger in the Mississippi valley, the average size per 

 farm in 1910 being 29 acres. 



The total income in 1909 from woodlots in the area under considera- 

 tion was $170,000,000. In that year the area in woodlots was 

 145,000,000 acres. 



It is calculated that these woodlots now contain saw timber total- 

 ing 174,000,000,000 board feet and fuel equal to 1,100,000,000 cords. 



Most woodlots are remnants of the original forests which were left 

 when the rest of the farms were cleared. These remaining wooded 

 tracts were once much more extensive than now. Areas have been con- 

 stantly diminishing through clearing new fields. The total area iu 

 woodlots in 1910 was 85 per cent of what it was in 1880, showing a 

 yearly rate of decrease of one-half of one per cent. The area of wood- 

 lots amounts to 29 per cent of the whole farm area. 



The quality of timber in woodlots is scarcely equal to that in gen- 

 eral forests because a process of culling choice trees from the lot is 

 common and much damage results from grazing farm stock which 

 is often permitted to range there. Still, about one-sixth of the stand- 

 ing timber of the area under consideration is in woodlots and five- 

 sixths in general forest. 



The increased production from woodlots, that is, the amount taken 

 off and used on the farm or otherwise disposed of, increased 90 

 per cent during the thirty years from 1880 to 1910. This product 

 was made up of lumber, poles, posts, bark, pulpwood and fuel. 



Mr. Frothingham believes that the area in woodlots will continue 

 to decrease as more land is cleared for cultivation, but it should not 

 be expected that the process will continue indefinitely, for the farm- 

 grown wood has an important place to fill in this country's indus- 

 tries. The value of the products will increase until the returns will 

 constitute a considerable part of the farm's income. It is assumed 

 that the average size of the permanent woodlot may be about ten 

 acres, and that the total cut of wood of all kinds will be equivalent 

 to nearly 25,000,000 cords a year. 



