LOBLOLLY OR NORTH CAROLINA PINE. 145 



cies for cross-ties in trams and logging roads. A tree large enough to 

 make such a cross-tie is from 8 to 12 inches in diameter on the stump, 

 and there are about 500 such trees used in laying one mile of tramway. 

 If the increment on these trees amounts to 2,850 feet, board measure, 

 a year until the time of the second cutting in ten years, there has been a 

 loss of 28,000 feet of timber from the 320 acres which was logged by 

 means of this spur road. This loss amounts to 85 board feet per acre. 

 Some loggers, especially where the mill men own the timber, take up 

 the cross-ties and relay them several times. Others, however, never 

 use a tie the second time, after the spikes are drawn. The loss of this 

 young timber is an immense drain on the future yield of the forest and 

 goes far toward keeping it in its depleted condition, as it destroys so 

 i?iany trees which would be the largest trees at the time of the next 

 cutting. Over the greater portion of the pine land there is sufficient 

 scrubby hardwood to be used for ties. Where the track is temporary 

 and there is an abundant supply of small hardwood, owners of tim- 

 berland should specify in their sale contracts, or in logging contracts, 

 that all cross-ties and bridge timbers are to be cut from the cheaper 

 class of hardwoods; black gum, oaks, and maples. Where there is 

 an insufficient supply of hardwood timber, the best portion of the 

 tops of medium grade pines which are cut for saw logs should be used, 

 or short bodied or defective pines which will not make good milling 

 trees by the next cutting, or trees thinned from dense groups of pine. 



There is also some waste of timber in skidding, a considerable portion 

 of which should be avoided, by using for skidways and loading tables, 

 logs of a poor class of hardwoods, defective pines or trees from thick 

 groups of pines which need thinning. The same applies to the use of 

 timber for the construction of corduroy roads, small bridges, cribbing, 

 and trusses. 



Another item in which there is great waste of young timber is fuel 

 for logging locomotives. The contractors or cutters, who supply fuel, 

 generally take out the clearest and straightest young trees on account of 

 the ease with which they can be split. Defective trees, whenever pos- 

 sible, should be used for such fuel, and where the locomotive boiler 

 furnace is large enough to take round wood, the knotty part of the tops 

 which can not be split, should be utilized in that way, together with 

 the limbs. Where all the fuel for the logging locomotives can not be 

 supplied in this way, the rest of it should be cut from groups of young 

 trees which require thinning. In fact this offers, together with the use 

 of young trees for cross-ties, the best means of making, at no expense, 

 thinnings which will be of great benefit to the forest and largely improve 

 Its condition, and increase, instead of decreasing, the yield at the time 

 of the next cutting. In logging over a large tract 20,000 to 50,000 acres, 

 nearly one cord of fuel is required for moving 10,000 feet of logs from 

 the forest to the sa^TOiill. If even one-half of this is young timber, it 

 means the removal of four 8-inch trees, or their equivalent, per acre for 

 10 



