HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



The Importance of Wood 

 Preservation 



Most business men, especially those who 

 buy and sell lumber, are acquainted with the 

 rise and fall of the market and have possibly 

 seen a slow, but steady price increase in lum- 

 ber values, from time to time. The mine 

 owner, builder and railroad manager know 

 this and are also acquainted with the fact 

 that the wood which they use is subject to 

 decay. Such men are constantly confronted 

 with the vital problem of "how shall I pro- 

 long the life of my timber?" — be it railroad 

 ties, mine timber or telegraph poles. The 

 species of timber being used for these pur- 

 poses are becoming scarcer and scarcer. 



There seems but one way in which the situa- 

 tion may be met: namely, to prolong the life 

 of such timbers by treating them with some 

 preservative. 



Obviously, to increase the length of time 

 nliich timbers can be used, doubles the life. 

 This means to cut by nearly one-half the 

 amount of timber required before and thus a 

 one-half reduction in expenditure. This is 

 the economical result of treating woods with 

 preservatives. 



What Is Decay? 



The process of decay goes on in all woods 

 from the activities of low forms of plant life, 

 called, technically, fungi and bacteria. These 

 forms of plant life are so minute that they 

 can only be seen under the microscope. The 

 common toad-stool, which may be seen on rot- 

 ting logs, is a fungus which is the fruiting 

 body or "breeding nest" for the tiny fungi 

 which enter the tree through the bark and 

 cause its decay. Some of the wood-destroy- 

 ing fungi attack the ' ' cellulose, ' ' the chief 

 component of wood structure; others, the in- 

 crustation around the cells. In addition to 

 food, the fungus must have air, moisture and 

 some heat. Deprive the fungus of one of 

 these and it cannot live. All climates which 

 grow wood furnish heat. It is only by de- 

 priving the fungus of moisture or food that 

 it can be exterminated. 



Fungi enter the wood from the outside in- 

 variably, and are never inherent in the wood, 

 as is commonly supposed. 



Preservatives — Creosote and Zinc 

 Chloeid 



Creosote is a by-jjroduct of coal tar, which 

 is produced in the manufacture of gas and at 

 the coke-oven plants. This is the true creo- 

 sote. But in general "creosote" is merely 

 the dead oil of coal tar. 



Zinc chlorid is produced by dissolving zinc 

 in hydrochloric acid. 



Methods of Injecting the Timber 



In the open-tank process the wood is first 

 thoroughly seasoned, and then immersed in a 

 hot bath of the preservative which is con- 

 tained in the open-tank. The length of im- 

 mersion lasts from one to six hours, depend- 

 ing upon the timber. During the treatment 



the air and moisture is found out by the 

 heat of the hot-bath and appears as little 

 bubbles on the surface. 



The pressure-process seems rather too costly 

 on account of the equipment needed. 



Lastly, the simple, less efficient brush 

 method, wherein treatment is secured by 

 painting the surface with at least two coats 

 of hot creosote. 



The excellence of both creosote and zinc 

 chlorid as antiseptics, and the large quantities 

 at which both may be obtained, make them 

 ' particularly well adapted to wood preserva- 

 tion. 



Where the Saving Comes In 



To contemplate the idea of preserving tim- 

 ber, unless it can more than offset the outlay 

 by longer .service than before treatment, is 



utter foolishness. Statistics gathered show 

 that the saving due to treating railroad ties 

 is quite favorable. 



An untreated pine tie is worth about 30 

 cents, and its length of life in this condition 

 is about five years. The cost of laying is 

 about 20 cents. At compound interest, figur- 

 ing at 5 per cent, the annual cost is 11.50 

 cents. If treated it wiU last over a period 

 of twelve years. The cost of this treatment 

 is about 3.5 cents. Therefore a treated pine 

 tie lying in the track costs about 85 cents. 

 Compounded at 5 per cent, as in the above 

 example, its annual cost is 9.45 cents. The 

 yearly saving amounts to 2.05 cents per tie. 



The average number of ties per mile 

 .Tinounts to about 2,900, thus the annual sav- 

 ing due to treatment alone amounts to $59.45 

 per mile. 



Results just as remarkable could be shown 

 in the case of telegraph poles, mine-timbers 

 and in fact all wood which comes into contact 

 with the earth. James TJpham. 



NeWs Miscellany 



The Kennedy Manufacturing Company 



The Kennedy Manufacturing Company is the 

 name of a comparatively new bardwood lumber 

 and cooperage institution with headquarters at 

 Memphis, Tenn. William M. Kennedy is presi- 

 dent, C. M. Kennedy, vice president and general 

 manager, and L. H. Martin, secretary and treas- 

 urer. 



The mills of the company are at Noxapater, 

 Miss., where the company has recently pur- 

 chased about fifty thousand dollars' worth of 

 timber consisting o. white and red oak, yellow 

 pine, poplar, cypress, gum, hickory, etc.,. and is 

 erecting a sawmill with twenty-five thousand 

 feet daily capacity, and will soon commence the 

 manufacture of lumber and heading. Such ma- 

 terial as will bring more profit as heading will 

 not be cut into lumber. The purchasing and 

 selling office is located at Memphis, Tenn. 



William M. Kennedy and L. H. Martin have 

 not long been engaged in the manufacture of 

 staves and heading, but the new company is or- 

 ganized (0 admit C. M. Kennedy, vice president 

 of the new corporation, who will be general man- 

 ager of the Noxapater plant. 



William Kennedy says that the time has ar- 

 rived in the history of the stave and heading 

 business when a sawmill must be operated in 

 connection with the cooperage plant, as opera- 

 tors are no longer able to buy white oak tim- 

 ber suitable for heading without bu.ying the land. 

 Therefore it is necessary to utilize all other 

 timber to make the transaction profitable. He 

 finds it necessary, to get the best returns out 

 of timber property, to cut the white oak into 

 quarter-sawed lumber or flitches rather than to 

 put it into heading. Hence it is that he pro- 

 poses to make the lumber business take prece- 

 dence over the stave and heading business in 

 future operations, and thus be able to compete 

 with lumbermen in timber purchases. 



lumber, still the forest has great value as a tur- 

 pentine-producing territory. Long-leaf and Cuban 

 pine constitute approximately 90 per cent of the 

 merchantable stand. This growth is rather 

 scrubby, and the average acre contains probably 

 less than 1,500 feet of merchantable timber. In 

 working this territory, modern conservative 

 methods of turpentining w-ill be adopted, with a 

 view to insuring a perpetual supply and at the 

 same time not harming the timber. 



Besides the pine growth, there are a consid- 

 erable number of hardwood species, and also 

 several other species of coniferous growth. Scat- 

 tered along swamp borders are to be found cy- 

 press, juniper, pencil cedar and spruce-pine. Of 

 the hardwoods, live oak, different species of 

 hickory, magnolia, bay, holly and titi are most 

 frequently found. Several species of each 

 genus are usually in evidence. 



The topographical conditions prevailing in the 

 forests are not at all severe, the country being 

 slightly rolling and the soil sandy. It Is of the 

 same general type found throughout the sand- 

 hill region of Alabama, Georgia and North Caro- 

 lina. Contrary to the popular conception of the 

 forest composition in Florida, very few sub- 

 tropical species flourish. 



The Choctawhatchee National Forest 



The reconnaissance survey of the Chocta- 

 whatchee National Forest has brought out some 

 interesting information relative to the approxi- 

 mate area and the nature of the stand. There 

 are contained within borders about 470,000 acres, 

 the government owning one-half of the total 

 area. Of this vast acreage, there is only about 

 10 per cent not covered with tree growth. 



While there Is practically no growth of large 

 enough size or sufficient quality to be cut as 



The Steel Industry 



The report of the United States Steel Corpo- 

 ration for 1909 shows the largest surplus and 

 working capital in the history of the company. 

 The surplus is .flul,354,528, after deductions of 

 dividends of $25,247,858 to the sinking fund, and 

 an appropriation of $18,200,000 for betterments, 

 r-.ew construction, reserves and mining royalties. 



The working capital at the end of the year 

 was $229,873,000, compared with a previous 

 high record of $133,415,000 in 1908. The total 

 amount of bonds issued in 1909 was $20,875,000. 

 The bonds retired during the year left a net 

 increase in the bonded and debenture debt for 

 the twelve months of $12,718,639. 



Chairman E. H. Gary, In a statement to the 

 shareholders, says : "The substantial revival in 

 business activity, which became evident in the 

 spring of 1909, continued with Increasing volume* 

 throughout the year. Accordingly the output in 

 earnings of the subsidiary companies shows ma- 

 terial increases over the results of the preceding 

 year. 



"The total production of finished products for 

 sale in 1909 equaled about seventy-five per cent 

 of the normal maximum productive capacity of 



