THE WAR AGAINST WOOD WASTE 211 



So successful have been these preservatives that creosoted ties 

 of species which without treatment would decay in a few years 

 often last longer than an untreated tie of the most durable 

 species. Since about ninety million untreated railroad ties are 

 in use today, this class of material alone, offers a possible sav- 

 ing to the nation and to industry of nearly two billion board 

 feet of wood annually. Protecting wood from decay becomes 

 increasingly important as our timber supply wanes and the 

 cost of wood rises. Each year preservatives are cheating decay 

 of millions of feet of wood in ties, piling, fence posts, and poles, 

 wherever wood structures are exposed to earth and air. 



Even beneath the surface of the water where wood is safe 

 from the decay fungus, it is not safe from destruction. In salt 

 water wood has an especially active enemy, the Teredo or ship, 

 worm. These worms make long, cylindrical tunnels in the 

 wood, often so closely crowded together that only a very thin 

 film of wood structure remains between them. The pile of 

 wharf, or whatever the structure soon becomes weakened un- 

 der this attack and finally breaks. In the harbor of San Fran- 

 cisco the appetite of the Teredo costs millions of dollars yearly. 



Government specialists are still working on some effective 

 and practical means of cheating these ship worms of the mil- 

 lions of feet of wood they annually consume. Here, too, the 

 chief reliance is placed on substances that can be forced into 

 the wood and render it poisonous or unpalatable to the Teredo. 



In this war against wood waste, probably more constructive 

 progress has been made by the scientists at the Forest Products 

 Laboratory of the U. S. Government than by all other investi- 

 gators. The prevention of waste in the wood industry is one 

 of the real reasons for the laboratory's existence. It is the center 



