25 



Tamarack and Hemlock Tie Treatments. 



The Forest Service has recently been investigating the method of treating 

 tamarack and hemlock ties used by the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad at 

 its plant at Escanaba, Mich. A number of ties have been cut at various 

 seasons of the year and allowed to season, and are now being treated in a 

 series of experimental runs at the Escanaba plant It has been found that 

 green tamarack and hemlock weighing as much as 48 and 50 pounds per cubic 

 foot can not be treated successfully, but that when the timber is seasoned to a 

 weight of 38 to 42 pounds per cubic foot good results can be obtained. Both 

 the Burnettizing and the Wellhouse processes have been used. The treated 

 ties, together with seasoned untreated and green untreated ties, will later be 

 placed in an experimental tract for comparative tests. 



Mine Prop Treatments. 



C. G. Crawford, after an inspecting trip to the mines of the Philadelphia and 

 Reading Coal and Iron Company, reports highly encouraging progress in the 

 experimental treatments \vhich the company is carrying on to ascertain the best 

 methods of handling and treating mine props. Tho the treated timbers 

 have been in the mines only about four months their superiority is shown by 

 the fact that they remain free from the decay which has attacked the untreated 

 timber. Plans are now under way for the erection of a small commercial plant 

 to test further the advisability of using treated timbers on a larger scale. 



Beserve Engineering. 



W. E. Herring, formerly connected with the Irrigation and Drainage Investi- 

 gations of the Department of Agriculture, has been placed in charge of the Sec- 

 tion of Reserve Engineering and will have general supervision of all engineering 

 work on reserves done by private interests or by the Forest Service. 



Timber Tests. 



Tests to determine the relative strength of the various timbers on the re- 

 serves are in progress at the Service testing station at Seattle, Wash. The test 

 material now on hand includes Alpine fir and Engelmann spruce from the Pecos 

 Reserve, New Mexico ; red fir and western yellow pine from the Pikes Peak Re- 

 serve, Colorado ; Alpine fir, Engelmann spruce, and lodgepole pine from the 

 Medicine Bow Reserve, Wyoming. 



J. B. Knapp, in charge of the Service timber-testing station at Eugene, Oreg., 

 has accepted the directorship of the testing laboratory of the University of 

 Oregon, where the testing station is located. 



During the past six months M. Cline has spent a month or more at each of 

 the timber-testing laboratories, in order to bring the testing methods up to a 

 uniform standard of efficiency. 



