156 transactions of royal scottish arboricultural society. 



The Civil Engineers on British Forestry.^ 



At the opening of tbe current session of the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers, the President (Mr J. C. Hawkshaw) said that 

 the progress of the last century had been mainly due to the use 

 which had been made of the metal, iron. In their enthusiasm for 

 the great results achieved by this new macerial, they might over- 

 look what they had owed in the past, and what they would 

 still require in the future, from timber. Engineei's here could not 

 do without timbei', nor, indeed, without much timber. For the 

 last thirty years they had heard it said that steel would shortly 

 be adopted in place of wood for railway sleepers ; nevertheless, 

 although we could make our own steel, but had to import our 

 timber sleepers, this change had not come to pass. France had 

 had experience for years in iron and steel sleepers; yet but few of 

 these were laid in that country, which, in spite of her well-managed 

 forests, had to import sleepers. More metal sleepers were used in 

 Germany, also a timber-importing country, but Germany still used 

 much wood for sleepers. Metal sleepers were used in South Africa, 

 and, together with native timber, in Australia, India, and South 

 America. In Argentina some ii'on sleepers had recently been 

 replaced by native wood sleepers. The United States and Canada 

 used wood only, and used more wood for sleepers in proportion to 

 their railway mileage than any other country, from 2500 to 3150 

 being laid to a mile in the former, and 2600 in the latter, as com- 

 pared with from 1760 to 2145 to a mile in this country. The con- 

 sumption of timber for sleepers increased yearly, and more were 

 now laid to a mile than formerly, especially in the United States 

 and Canada; but there was a recent tendency to slightly reduce 

 the number in the United States and Canada, and to increase it 

 in this country. The vise of creosote prolonged the life, and so 

 somewhat reduced the consumption of sleepers. 



We had a less area under forest in proportion to our size than 

 any other country in Europe except Portugal, but our timber 

 imports were more than half the total timber imports of the 

 timber-importing countries of Europe. Of the timber imported 

 into this country in 1899, more than nine-tenths in weight, and 

 nearly four-fifths in value, were coniferous wood, which was grown 

 in the temperate countries of the northern hemisphere, and this 

 was the timber which was most largely consumed in engineering 



^ From an article in the Standard of 5th November. 



