REPLANTING NATION'S FORESTS UNDERTAKEN BY 



RAILROADS. 



BY JOHN HOWARD TODD. 



Railroads of the United States are taking the initiative in the 

 reforestation of the country. They have undertaken a work which 

 promises to be of vast importance to themselves and to the people at 

 large. One generation hence they will be referred to as the pioneers 

 in practical forest culture. Lumbermen foresee the facts and are giv- 

 ing credit in advance. Forestry associations, racked by many dis- 

 couragements, are pinning their faith to the great transportation 

 companies, Railroad officials themselves modestly admit that pos- 

 terity may owe them something on this score. 



It is no philanthropic impulse that moves the railroads. Senti- 

 ment does not enter into their great project. They are inspired by a 

 cold calculation of the lumber needs of the future and the diminish- 

 supply of to-day, If their enterprise shall make a desert bloom here 

 and influence a more productive climate there, well and good, but 

 what they want is railroad ties. Twenty years hence that need will 

 be acute unless some provision is made to meet the enormous demand. 



Friends of forestry are not moved so much by what the railroads 

 actually will do as they are by the reflex influence the work is ex- 

 pected to exert on the country at large in enforcing the truth that the 

 timber supply is not inexhaustible. They believe public sentiment 

 will be aroused as it never has been before; that the federal and state 

 governments will turn their attention more seriously to this great 

 question; that the private culture of forests will be given a wide- 

 reaching impulse; that their dream of a "primeval forest, the mur- 

 muring pines and the hemlocks" will be realized with glorious conse- 

 quences. 



Among the great railroad systems which already have undertaken 

 forestry culture or are giving the subject serious consideration are: 

 Illinois Central, Rio Grande Western, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago 

 & St. Louis, Boston & Maine, West Virginia Central, Pennsylvanin, 

 Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, 

 Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Chicago. Burlington & Quincy. 



To the average mind a million is beyond comprehension, but if 

 there were one great composite mind directing the railroads of the 

 nation, it would have to think in tens and hundreds of millions on the 



