502 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



and but a fraction of what is to come. By a law now in force these roads must be in- 

 closed by more than ten thousand miles of fencing, and how perishable these fenccss 

 are, all farmers know. These roads have more than 10,000,000 ties, which, lying exposed 

 to air and dampness, decay in live or six years. The aggregate length of wooden rail- 

 road bridges in Ohio is nearly sixteen miles, and of trestles more than ten miles. 

 These are perishable structures, and must be frequently replaced; the average age of 

 the 770 wooden bridges in Ohio is only five and a half years, and of the trestles seven 

 years. Moreover, locomotives burn an immense amount of wood, and, although coal 

 is burned on railroads in a rapidly increasing ratio, yet the consumption of wood con- 

 tinues and increases. Ohio locomotives burned, in 1870, eighteen times as much coal 

 as in 1858; but in the same interval the consumption of wood rose from 209,410 cords 

 to 700,000 cords. 



Speaking of the great demand already felt for young timber, Mr. 

 Millikin says : 



I am acquainted with a region of this State where transportation is so difficult that 

 cord-wood is worth just what it costs to cut it ; yet even in this district the woods are 

 thoroughly culled of all young hickoiy and ash trees, which have been sought by 

 agents and procured by purchase or theft, and liave eventually passed into the hands 

 of carriage-makers and other manufacturers. Near the present town of Houston, six- 

 teen miles north from Piqua, General Wayne made an encampment at some time 

 between 1792 and 1795. To avoid surprise by Indians, he caused a space of 10 acres to 

 be cleared. In 18G0 the buggy manufacturers offered 9 cents per foot, linear measure- 

 ment, for hickory, ash, and elm logs on this tract, no log to be more than 10 inches nor 

 less than 6 inches in diameter. The aggregate length of these logs was no less than 

 25,000 feet. 



A few facts given by tbe writer toucliing the consumption of timber 

 for telegraph poles are worthy of consideration. He says : 



ITie three great telegraph companies which operate lines in Ohio have four thousand 

 five hundred miles of poles within the State, and eleven thousand five hundred miles 

 of wire; in the United States these companies maintain fifty-seven thousand five 

 hundred and forty-eight miles of jioles, and one hundred and sixteen thousand five 

 hundred and sixty-one miles of wire. Besides this, the Marietta and Cincinnati Rail- 

 road has one hundred and fifteen miles of poles, and two hundred and fifty miles of 

 wire. * # # Outside of cities, and away from road-crossings, tele- 



graph poles are 25 to 28 feet long, and have a diameter at one end of 10 to 12 inches, 

 and about 5 inches at the other. At this time the so-called white cedar poles of these 

 dimensions are worth 90 cents each in Chicago. Such a price for this timber, which 

 has undergone no manufacturing process and is of very doubtful durability, may give 

 some basis for an estimate of what prices will be twenty years hence, when wo shall 

 have, perhaps, two or three times as many miles of telegraph as now, and when the 

 extensive forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are gone. 



In view of the probable high prices of wood in the no distant future, 

 Mr. Millikin says : 



No one ought to hesitate about planting choice sorts of timber, even on land worth 

 $100 an acre. December 1, 1871, good hoop-poles for barrels were worth $20 and $30 

 per 1,000 in Cincinnati. Andrew S. Fuller, author of the Forest Tree Culturist, informs 

 me that 10,000 such poles could be grown on an acre of ground in from five to eight 

 years. If half of these were spared we should have .$125, and probably more, as the 

 gross receipts of the first crop. Supposing that the 5,000 poles not cut at first were 

 cultivated for three years, they would be fit for first-class hogshead hoops, and would 

 bo worth $40 to $75 per 1,000 in Cincinnati to-day, or say $275 for the second crop. 

 Farmers do not need to be told that this will pay. All the cutting and most of the 

 cultivation of such a plantation could be done between the fall and early spring, when 

 ordinary farm work is not pressing. A hickory plantation would last forever if cut 

 only in'tlie winter, for the sproitts Avould always grow straighter and faster than the 

 original trunk. And, if the planter sees fit, a portion of plants might be permitted to 

 grow up into trees, and the remainder be destroyed by summer cutting. 



Mr. George H. Thurston, president of the Pacific and Atlantic Tele- 

 graph Company, in a letter to the writer, commends locust and red 

 cedar posts, and says he never expects to see the decay of such as are 

 used on the line of which he is an officer. Oak poles, which are some- 

 what used in Pennsylvania and Maryland, decay in from six to eight 

 years. Chestnut lasts from twelve to fifteen years. Tamarack (American 



