04 The Forest Products Laboratory 



How much more could be said upon the question of the timber 

 that has disappeared. Let us consider wahiut, if you please, for a 

 while. There was a time, as most of you know, several older people 

 tell us and younger people have read it, that they built rail fences in 

 Indiana and Ohio of walnut. Now they are digging out the stumps 

 of -what was left, veneering it for covering for pianos and beautiful 

 furniture. The walnut log is about as scarce as a gold mine now. 

 There is very little left indeed. There is a small supply left in Okla- 

 homa that is so far away from transportation that one could not 

 afford to handle it. White oak is becoming very scarce. I had in my 

 day a wide experience in the manufacture of M^hite oak, and I felt 

 that I was quite conversant Mdth the supply throughout the United 

 States. I made a study of it at that time. A man might offer m<? 

 any price today that he chooses in asking me to furnish a sawmill 

 where I could supply him with, say 100,000,000 feet of white oak in 

 the next ten years; I should have to tell him frankly, I would not 

 know where to go. By white oak I mean the kind that can be used 

 for finish, the kind that we used to regard as merchantable white oak 

 during the days when Me actually had a supply. 



Xow there enters into this question the tie supply for railroads. 

 There is still quite a lot of white oak available along the Ohio river, 

 some in the mountains of Tennessee, some in the state of Mississippi ; 

 and as you go on through the South you will find a little patcli of 

 white oak here and there that the planter lias refused to cut down 

 because of some sentiment connected Avith it or because he wanted to 

 keep it for ornamental purposes. You will find in Arkansas little 

 patches and stands of timber that the lumberman has gone through 

 which he left because the trees could not be used for ties and merchant- 

 able timber. Vast quantities of ties in this country are being made 

 of hemlock and other softwoods, and the railroads are getting along 

 with what years ago they thought they coidd not use. The hemlock 

 is going and so are the other woods that they are using, and finally 

 some other material must be substituted. 



But to get at what I was asked to speak about. What are we 

 going to do to better conserve our forests, our timber supply; and 

 what kind of legislation should be enacted to do that? The people 

 of this country are not agreed upon this subject. In fact, it is one of 

 our peculiarities that we are never quite agreed upon any subject. 



