TURF, TEN YEARS 1 RECORD OF THE. 



767 



The yearly demand for railroad ties is one 

 of the principal causes of the deforesting of 

 the country. It has been estimated that there 

 is annually required for this one purpose alone 

 the available timber on 565,714 acres, and 

 that, allowing that a growth of 30 years is 

 requisite to produce trees of proper dimen- 

 sions for ties, it would require 16,971,420 acres 

 of woodland to be held as a sort of railroad re- 

 serve to supply the annual demands of the exist- 

 ing roads, to say nothing of those not yet built. 

 This is between three aud four per cent, of the 

 woodland of the United States, exclusive of 

 Alaska. In view of the importance of this 

 question, several of the large land-grant rail- 

 road companies have, on tracts of land spe- 

 cially adapted for the purpose, planted trees in 

 sufficient quantities to supply the future needs 

 of the railroad. The Kansas City, Fort Scott, 

 and Gulf Railroad has already nearly 700 acres 

 of finely growing timber, 2,000 trees to the 

 acre, as the result of its forethought. 



It would not be proper to dismiss this sub- 

 ject without calling attention to the produc- 

 tion of maple-trees in the States of Ohio and 

 Vermont. The former produces annually about 

 591,432 gallons of maple sirup, and 1,807,701 

 pounds of sugar, valued at $617,762 ; while 

 Vermont annually produces sugar and sirup 

 at the rate of about 36 pounds for each of her 

 inhabitants, or a total production of more than 

 12,000,000 pounds per year. The census of 

 1880 snowed that the annual value of the prod- 

 ucts of industries using wood or other forest 

 products entirely was $469,073,165 ; and that 

 the value of the materials from which such 

 products were made was $233,933,030. 



TURF, TEN YEARS' RECORD OF THE. No dec- 

 ade in the history of horse-racing, in this or 

 any other country, has witnessed such a re- 

 markable gro-.vth as that, which has taken 

 place in the United States during the past ten 

 years. New driving associations have been 

 organized all over the country, new race-tracks 

 have been opened near almost every important 

 city. The number of horses in training has 

 doubled, tripled, quadrupled. New breeding- 

 farms have been established and stocked, and 

 the prices of thoroughbred yearlings have 

 greatly increased. The number of races has 

 been augmented from year to year, until now, 

 from April to November each season, they are 

 held on at least three days in each week and 

 during a considerable portion of the time, 

 every day in the week, with no breathing- 

 spell except on Sunday, and the attendance 

 has grown from year to year as the interest in 

 the sport has increased and intensified. This 

 growth had begun in 1876 with a slight re- 

 covery from the set-back due to the financial 

 panic of 1873 and the subsequent business de- 

 pression, but in the succeeding five years it 

 went on with accelerating speed, especially in 

 the Northern States, where horse-racing had 

 not attained as much popularity as in the 

 South, before the civil war. Prior to 1881 



the Monmouth Park Association, having passed 

 under the control of some of the most honored 

 gentlemen connected with the turf, so im- 

 proved its course and so added to the attrac- 

 tions of its programmes as to collect crowds, 

 such as had not been seen at a race-track for 

 ten years before. The American Jockey Club 

 was roused to new life and activity, and its 

 meetings were made more interesting and im- 

 portant. Some of its most prominent mem- 

 bers resolved on forming a new association, 

 which should give races at the seaside, at a 

 time when the heat made Jerome Park a place 

 to be shunned rather than sought. The Coney 

 Island Jockey Club, with its really admirable 

 grounds, was the result. Unfortunately, the 

 management of the races there have of late 

 fallen into disrepute, a belief having gotten 

 abroad that the races are not always honestly 

 contested, but are won or lost to suit the pur- 

 poses of book-makers, who themselves own 

 horses and make books upon races in which 

 their own horses contend. At St. Louis, at 

 Chicago, at Cincinnati, and other Western 

 cities, as well as in the East, at Hartford and 

 Boston, the racing-meetings became more suc- 

 cessful than ever before. At Saratoga, in 

 1881, and since, races have been given week 

 after week with only Sundays intervening, 

 with no apparent flagging of interest. It used 

 to be thought that no first-class race-horse 

 could be bred in this country at any great dis- 

 tance from the blue-grass of Kentucky. The 

 theory has been that the best stock follows the 

 limestone formation ; and it is a theory that 

 has not been disproved. For the glories of the 

 Southern turf have by no means departed. 

 At Louisville, the racing is still of the highest 

 order, and Lexington and Nashville keep up 

 the old traditions. Kentucky still brings forth 

 her annual brood of sons and daughters of 

 sires famous on both sides of the Atlantic. 

 But it is no longer necessary, as it once 

 was, to go to the blue-grass region to see a 

 great breeding-farm. Chestnut Hill, Rancocas, 

 Meadowbrook. and Westbrook have compared 

 well, during the past five years, with the best 

 the South can show, while, for completeness 

 and perfection of appointment, for care and 

 thoroughness of management, and for high 

 character of racing, even Louisville is equaled 

 by Jerome Park, Gravesend, Monmouth, and 

 Saratoga. The increased interest in breeding 

 is shown by the organization in almost every 

 State where thoroughbreds are raised at all, 

 of breeders' associations and by the large at- 

 tendance upon their meetings. Within the 

 last year or two racing has been carried to sucli 

 an extent as actually to alarm the more judi- 

 cious devotees of the turf. Great as has been 

 the increase in the number of horses in train- 

 ing, it has not been sufficient to supply the de- 

 mand, and the natural consequence has been 

 that the horses actually on the turf have been 

 called upon for much more work than they 

 could safely perform. Many have been broken 



