THE TREE DOCTOR 



211 



Photo 196, Among the Mountains. 



cance of these figures is more apparent when it is remembered 

 that two hundred ties are about the average yield per acre of 

 forest, varying very greatly in different localities, so that to 

 supply this single item necessitates the denudation annually of 

 over one-half million acres of forest. But the cross-tie supply 

 is only one of the forest products required by the railroads. 

 There are bridge timbers, fence-posts, telegraph-poles, car ma- 

 terials and building timbers of all kinds, all of which, it is esti- 

 mated, will nearly equal, in broad measure, the cross-tie item ; 

 so that it is probable that the railroads of the United States re- 

 quire annually, under present practices, the entire product of 

 almost one million acres of forest." From the same pamphlet 

 I quote from the speech of Mr. David T. Day, Chief of the 

 Division of Mining and Mineral Resources, United States Geo- 

 logical Survey : "The miner has established his reputation as a 

 good customer of the lumberman, and is daily becoming a better 



