MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 277 



stated, are profitably reached only by small portable sawmills, which 

 find employment mostly for only a few months in one place. Siz- 

 able timber is especially scarce near railways and the principal 

 wagon-roads, over which the original stock has largely been taken. 



A few portable sawmills are cutting small quantities of the above- 

 mentioned timber at various points through the northern and middle 

 portions of the county. In some cases the output is a mixed cut of 

 hardwoods and pine, while in other localities the cut is principally 

 either oak or pine. The best quality of lumber produced is oak. 

 The pine cut is very knotty and of second- or third-rate quality. 

 Owing most likely to the absence of convenient railw r ay connections, 

 a comparatively low price, $8.00 to $12.50 per 1,000 board feet, is 

 received for the average local output of lumber. 



The demand for mining props and railway ties is apparently large 

 and relatively more profitable to the producer than lumber. The 

 output of this material is, however, confined chiefly to localities near 

 the coal and fire-clay mines and the railways in the western part of 

 the county, and' to the region of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 

 and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Poor roads and high hills render 

 it unprofitable to haul such heavy material from the more distant 

 interior sections lying to the north. 



The mining props cut show that nearly all the trees of the region 

 contribute to this material. The species commonly cut are "White 

 Oak, Chestnut Oak, Scarlet Oak and Red Oak, Shagbark Hickory, 

 Pignut Hickory and Mockernut Hickory, Chestnut, Red Mulberry, 

 Locust, Sugar Maple, Red Maple, Black Gum, White Ash, Black 

 Cherry, White Pine, Pitch Pine, Scrub Pine, Table-mountain Pine 

 and Shortleaf Pine. All are used without distinction, but those most 

 highly prized for their strength and durability are White Oak, 

 Chestnut and Locust. The props range from five to seven inches 

 in diameter at the butt, and are nine feet long. It is rare, therefore, 

 that a tree furnishes more than three props. The present stand of 

 young timber fit for this purpose affords a yield of 35 to 50 props 

 per acre. Where the stand is largely Chestnut and Locust, which 

 is often the case, such cuttings may be made approximately every 



