The Forest Industries 61 



is not yet a thing of the past. The modern wire 

 fence may gradually supplant it but that also 

 needs posts to hang it on. Since fencing has gone 

 forward on the treeless plains, a large trade in 

 fence posts has even sprung up to supply this de- 

 mand, while formerly fence posts were mostly used 

 in the neighborhood where they were cut. Tele- 

 graph poles are another minor article of forest 

 industry which yet is of large proportions in the 

 aggregate ; so is the supply of long logs for piles 

 under the foundations of buildings. Railroad ties 

 are consumed at an ever-increasing rate. Hop 

 poles, bean poles, Christmas trees find ready sales 

 in many places. These and various other pro- 

 ducts of the woods have the peculiarity that even 

 in this age of machinery and production on a large 

 scale they are still, to a very great extent, supplied 

 by the labor of individuals armed simply with axe 

 and hand-saw. To the settler in forest regions the 

 ready market he finds for such articles is a very 

 great help during the period when his clearing has 

 not yet become a farm, and even when agriculture 

 proper has become his main occupation he can 

 make many a dollar of cash by work of this kind 

 in his timber -lot during unoccupied intervals. 

 Shingles are now usually made by machinery, but 

 in many parts of the country it still pays to make 

 them by hand for local consumption. 



Charcoal making is a forest industry which em- 

 ploys not a little capital and a great many work- 

 men. It is still, to a great extent, carried on by 



