THE IRRIGATION AGE 255 



cross-tie problem alone. The stupendous draft of the railroads on the 

 timber resources annually is exhibited in the following table: 



Railroad ties in use 7,000,000 



Average life of tie 7 years 



Annual requirement for renewals 112,000,000 



Annual expenditure for ties $60,000,000 



Annual forest clearance for ties alone 500,000 acres 



Number ties needed for next two decades 3,000,^00,000 



These figures are on the present mileage basis something less 

 than 180,000 miles of track with an average of 3,500 ties to the mile. 

 It is roughly estimated that the railroads of the country consume 

 one-ninth of the lumber used. Accepting the figures as approxi- 

 mately correct, the next two decades will witness the clearing away 

 of an area of woodland five times as big as the state of Ohio. Think 

 of the destruction of an unbroken forest 500 miles long and 400 miles 

 wide before 1920 and you have some conception of the situation with 

 which the railroads and the country at large are confronted. It is 

 this outlook that is stirring the railroads to activity. 



Chief among these just now is tr.e Illinois Central, which, a few 

 weeks ago, commissioned John P. Brown, secretary of the Interna- 

 tional Society of Arboriculture, of which J. Sterling Morton is presi- 

 dent, to locate in the South a tract of land best suited for the culture 

 and growth of the catalpa speciosa, a tree indigenous to the lower 

 valley of the Wabash river in Indiana and Illinois. Mr. Brown has 

 fulfilled that part of his mission and brings to the railroad officials 

 the most glowing accounts of the result of his search. He said: 



"1 have chosen a tract of 175 acres of land near Harahan, seven 

 miles north of New Orleans, for the Illinois Central's first experiment 

 in forestry culture. This has been planted. In that vicinity I find 

 that the growth of catalpa is more rapid than in any other part of the 

 country. Trees planted as late as 1890 have increased to a diameter 

 of twenty-five inches and grown to a height of fifty feet. Each of 

 these trees, I figure, will make ten ties surely an encouraging result 

 for a matter of twelve years' growth. 



The tract in question will accommodate 110,000 trees to be trans- 

 planted from a nursery where the seed was planted last spring. 

 This planting will be done as soon as the ground can be plowed and 

 put in order. Ten years hence the road will be getting ties from the 

 tract if it choosef although a wait of a few years longer would be 

 profitable, for in those few years the productive capacity of the trees 

 would be greatly increased. 



"What does this movement of the railroads signify to the people 

 generally? 



"The possibilities are so great that even I, in my enthusiasm, 

 hesitate to forecast them. If this experiment of the Illinois Central's 



