Determining Time Timber Was Cut. 403 



tense that they can tell whether or not ties were cut in winter, or 

 to allow this specification to remain altogether a dead letter. 

 vSometimes, as in the case of the railroads in Russia, agents have 

 been sent to the places where the ties were supposed to be cut in 

 order to ascertain on the ground the time of cutting. The lack 

 of any accurate method of determining with certainty the time of 

 cutting has also prevented many users from enforcing the speci- 

 fication that wood used for construction purposes should be cut 

 exclusively in winter. 



The ability to tell readily and accurately if not the month, at 

 least the season at which a given piece of wood used in construc- 

 tion was cut would evidently be of both scientific and practical 

 value. Scientifically, it would be of advantage because it would 

 enable us to determine with accuracy the exact role which the 

 time of cutting plays in causing decay. Practically, it would be 

 useful in helping us to study conditions under which wood of 

 summer as well as winter cutting may be used to the best ad- 

 vantage. It would undoubtedly lead to a demand by users of 

 wood to have the timber employed in construction cut in winter, 

 and in this way would lead to greater enconomy. 



It is easy to figure out the saving which could be made on rail- 

 road ties alone by the use of ties of winter cut only. There are 

 now about 300,000 miles of railroad track in the United States. 

 Since each mile of railroad requires on an average about 2,700 

 ties, there are in the neighborhood of 810,000,000 ties on the main 

 lines alone. Let us assume that ties cut in winter will give only 

 one year more service than ties cut in summer, or, in other words, 

 remain in the ground eight years instead of seven. If the ties 

 were to be changed every seven years there would be required 

 annually 810,000,000 divided by 7, or about 115,700,000 ties. If 

 the ties gave an eight-year service, then the number which it 

 would be necessary to replace every year would be 810,000,000 

 divided by 8, or about 101,250,000 ties. Thus, by using ties of 

 winter cutting there would be required annually about 14,450,000 

 less, which at an average price of 50 cents per tie would make a 

 saving of $7,225,000, not counting the cost of replacing the addi- 

 tional 14,450,000 ties. Since a large number of ties now used 

 by the railroads are cut in winter, this example does not pretend 

 to represent the actual saving, but merely to illustrate the possi- 

 bilities of using ties of winter instead of summer cutting. 



