REDWOOD LUMBERING. 29 



would make a terrible draft upon our timber reserves. Pre- 

 suming that experience with redwood ties will obtain for them 

 the preference at all centers where they can be shipped at 

 reasonable figures, the following from the New Orleans " Bul- 

 letin " of a recent date is submitted to give an idea of the 

 possible call for them, and the relative demand upon our 

 redwood forests. 



" There are no\v fully 148,000 miles of railroad track in 

 the United States, and therefore about 391,000,000 ties, and 

 the average consumption for renewals should be about 56,- 

 000,000, or thn product of 560,000 acres of land, at 100 ties 

 per acre, requiring 1 26,000,000 acres 26,000 square miles, or 

 nearly four times the area of Massachusetts." 



The estimate here made upon the number of ties per 

 acre will appear ridiculously small to the habitues of our 

 redwoods. The standard size of ties, six by eight inches, and 

 eight feet long, gives thirty-two feet to each making three 

 thousand two hundred feet per acre, according to the " Bulle- 

 tin " authority. A medium-sized redwood tree, say six to 

 seven feet at the butt, and having seven to nine lengths, at 

 least, that split readily, will give a product in ties equal to 

 five thousand feet, and this is a low estimate. It is a poor 

 " claim " that will not have ten trees of this description to the 

 acre, making a total amount of tics there as the product of a 

 single redwood acre 50,000 feet. Compared to the eastern 

 estimate, therefore, one acre of our redwoods would be equal 

 to nearly seventeen acres allowed to timber utilized for that 

 purpose in the East. In different sections of our country, 

 ties for railroads have heretofore been manufactured from 



