SEASONING AND IMPREGNATION OF TIMBEE 283 



For this purpose they use loblolly pine, which has a 

 great deal of sapwood into which the creosote will penetrate 

 much more readily than into the harder, long-leaved pine 

 which we call pitch pine. 1 



Fairly seasoned, sound pitch pine in logs or cut timber 

 occasionally take in 15 Ibs. per cubic foot, but this is rare, 

 and the average injected is much less, as the specification 

 shows. Timber merchants in Great Britain think that 

 even 7 Ibs. per cubic foot is a strict specification for pitch 

 pine, but if the timber is fairly dried and the oil heated 

 and pressed as specified above there is no difficulty. Only 

 recently several hundred logs of pitch pine were creosoted 

 under the above specification, and there were only three or 

 four which did not take in 7 Ibs. per cubic foot at the first 

 tanking ; 33 per cent, took in over 10 Ibs. and several 13 

 and 14 Ibs. per cubic foot. They had been drying for about 

 three months. 



The life of well-seasoned and properly creosoted timber, 

 even in situations inimical to its life, is almost indefinite, 

 and, as a proof of the advantages of the sys.tem, creosoted 

 timber piles standing in a row with uncreosoted piles were 

 perfectly intact after ten years, whilst the uncreosoted ones 

 were badly eaten by the sea worm. Creosoted pitch pine 

 piles have withstood the attacks of the luminoria on the 

 north-eastern coast of Great Britain for over twenty years 

 when untreated timber would have been rendered useless 

 in half the time, and the Louisville and Nashville Railway 

 Company have creosoted piles in their structures near New 

 Orleans which have withstood the teredo for twenty-five 

 years in a situation where this pest cuts down untreated 

 piles in one or two years. 



Creosoted railway sleepers have never been removed 



1 In recent tests 28 Ibs. of creosote per cubic foot was got into 

 loblolly sleepers. 



