358 DEMAND FOR LUMBER. 
for wood, the last twenty-five years would have almost stripped 
Europe of her last remaining tree fit for these uses.* 
in European carpentry was formerly enormous, the beams of houses being 
both larger and more numerous than permanence or stability required. In 
examining the construction of the houses occupied by the eighty families 
which inhabit the village of Faucigny, in Savoy, in 1854, the forest inspector 
found that fifty thousand trees had been employed in building them. The 
builders ‘‘ seemed,” says Hudry-Menos, ‘‘ to have tried to solve the problem 
of piling upon the walls the largest quantity of timber possible without crush- 
ing them.”—Revue des Dewx Mondes, 1st June, 1864, p. 601. 
European statistics present comparatively few facts on this subject, of 
special interest to American readers, but it is worth noting that France em- 
ploys 1,500,000 cubic feet of oak per year for brandy and wine casks, which is 
about half her annual consumption of that material; and it is not a wholly 
insignificant fact that, according to Rentzsch, the quantity of wood used in 
parts of Germany for small carvings and for children’s toysis so large, that the 
export of such objects from the town of Sonneberg alone, amounted, in 1858, 
to 60,000 centner, or three thousand tons’ weight.—Der Wald, p. 68. 
Tn an article in the Revue des Haux et Foréts for November, 1868, it is 
stated that 200,000 dozens of drums for boys are manufactured per month in 
Paris. This is equivalent to 28,800,000 per year, for which 56,000,000 
drumsticks are required, and the writer supposes that the annual growth of 
50,000 acres of woodland would not more than supply the material. In the 
same article the consumption of matches in France is given at 7,200,000,- 
000, and the quantity of lumber annually required for this manufacture is 
computed at 80,000 stéres, or cubic métres—evidently an erroneous calculation. 
* Besides the substitution of iron for wood, a great saving of consumption 
of this latter material has been effected by the revival of ancient methods of in- 
creasing its durability, and the invention of new processes for the same purpose. 
The most effectual preservative yet discovered for wood employed on land, is 
sulphate of copper, a solution of which is introduced into the pores of the 
wood while green, by soaking, by forcing-pumps, or, most economically, hy 
the simple pressure of a column of the fiuid in asmall pipe connected with the 
end of the piece of timber subjected to the treatment. Clavé (Ltudes Fo- 
resticres, pp. 240-249) gives an interesting account of the various processes em- 
ployed for rendering wood imperishable, and states that railroad-ties injected 
with sulphate of copper in 1846, were found absolutely unaltered in 1855 ; and 
telegraphic posts prepared two years earlier, are now in a state of perfect 
preservation. 
For many purposes, the method of injection is too expensive, and some 
simpler process is much to be desired. ‘The question of the proper time of 
felling timber is not settled, and the best modes of air, water, and steam 
seasoning are not yet fully ascertained. Experiments on these subjects would 
a 
