98 FOREST PLANTING. 



Estimating the yield of a single acre at 200 trees, 

 which is a large allowance for the average yield of native 

 woods, it will be seen that the produce of 225,000 acres 

 will be required to furnish ties for the existing roads, and 

 as the duration of ties is not more than eight years, it 

 follows that the above area must be stripped as often as 

 that to furnish simply the first article required in its con- 

 struction after the road is graded. It is true that a 

 better economy is beginning to prevail in some parts of 

 the West, where railroad companies have purchased large 

 tracts of forest and established mills for sawing the 

 timber, so as to avoid the wasteful necessity of using only 

 young timber. 



The fact of the adoption of such a measure of economy 

 is in itself an evidence of the sense of future necessities 

 which impelled it. A consideration of future wants will 

 show that much more efficient measures are required 

 than the mere economizing of present supplies, in order 

 to meet the enormous demand, of which the item I have 

 selected for illustration is really one of minor importance, 

 but one whose amount can be more readily expressed 

 than most others. A moment's reflection will show that 

 it comprises but a small portion of what is required for 

 railroad use, in comparison with the demand for bridges, 

 buildings, fences and rolling stock. And when it is con- 

 sidered that all this enormous consumption is but a 

 small fraction of the aggregate required for the infinite 

 variety of uses to which it is applied, it does not seem 

 surprising that the supply is already approaching an 

 estimable period of duration. The following statement 



