216 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the outside. The inside of most buildings are fairly dry 

 anyway. The paint manufacturers' slogan: "Save the 

 surface and you save all," is true to the last syllable. 



There are some paint substitutes on the market that 

 are quite valuable. They are known as "cold water" 

 paint and are applied like ordinary lime or "whitewash." 

 Lime is little used in our country, but it is an excellent 

 antiseptic and will kill decay bacteria in wood. There are 

 many hand hewn timber houses in the agricultural sec- 

 tions of Quebec that are preserved by occasional lime 

 washes. Many were built by the great-grandfathers of 

 the present occupants. The spruce timbers are as solid 

 as concrete, and I fancy they will last forever, unless the 

 progressive habitants discard their picturesque homes 

 for more modem ones. Of course lime does not look 

 very well, but it is cheap, effective and certainly looks 

 better than nothing. 



The public cannot particularly influence the cross-tie 

 problem, but it is a question of more than passing in- 

 terest. There are over 300,000 miles of railway in Can- 

 ada and the United States, and there are 2,500 to 3,000 

 ties to each mile of road. Until recently, very few ties 

 were given preservative treatment. An untreated tie 

 will last about seven years. This means some 400 ties 

 per annum are required to keep each mile of road in 

 repair, or 120 million ties. They would make four bil- 

 lion board feet of lumber. We disapprove of statisti- 

 cal juggling, but the magnitude of this lumber pile can 

 perhaps be visualized if we compute that it would lay a 

 boardwalk one inch thick and 28 feet wide around the 

 earth at the equator, and still have considerable left 

 over. 



Railways have been experimenting with steel, concrete, 

 and various wood substitutes, but they have been unable 

 to eliminate the wooden tie. There is no reason, however, 

 for ties being so short lived. Ties properly treated with 

 creosote or other good preservative, will last 14 years at 

 least, and thus cut tie consumption in two. 



I have observed thousands of ties on French railroads. 

 Nearly all are impregnated oak. A copper tag is attached ' 

 to each tie. On it is a number that can be looked up 

 in the office and will tell the date of laying, the method 

 of impregnation, and any important technical details. 

 The French engineers can thus check different processes, 

 and continuously make improvements. Ordinary spik- 

 ing is not done abroad either and ties are correspond- 

 ingly conserved. The rails are laid on a plate or "chair" 

 that is firmly bolted to the wood. The wear is thus iron 

 on iron rather than iron on wood. 



Certain tie woods do not need impregnation. Chest- 

 nut and black locust are the best known of these durable 

 species. But the chestnut has been swept off the greater 

 part of its range by the terrible chestnut blight, and the 

 locust borer has so infested the locust, that it too is get- 

 ting restricted in commercial range. Other enduring 

 woods, as the cedars, can be used without preservatives, 

 but they are getting scarce too, and are so soft that the 

 rails shear them off long before the timber decays. The 

 red ([Ufbracho of South America is said to last 30 years as 

 a tie. It is very rich in tannin and very durable. But 



we cannot import ties profitably in our generation. \Vc 

 should rather increase our exports in the South. It is 

 probable that the strong and fast growing loblolly pine 

 will solve the tie problem in the East, jack pine {Pinus 

 divaricata) is now the favorite in Canada, and perhaps 

 the lodgepole pine will be the solution in the West. But 

 they are all short-lived ties without the help of a pre- 

 servation plant. 



Common methods of getting out ties is another source 

 of waste. Ties are still hewed instead of being sawed in 

 some out-of-the-way places, and all the wood that is 

 hewed off is wasted. This debris remains in the woods 

 to the injury of reproduction. If the ties were sawed, 

 much valuable material could be taken from the tie slabs 

 that would otherwise be a total loss. 



An effort is now being made by certain large sales 

 corporations, to assist the public in buying the right 

 wood for the purpose for which it will be used. Many 

 believe that there is little or no good lumber on the mar- 

 ket at the present time. This is an old fashioned and er- 

 roneous idea for there is now a far larger assortment of 

 better timber for sale than there ever was before on this 

 continent, with the possible exception of some of the 

 better hard-woods. Good grades of oak, ash, and wal- 

 nut are not as common as they were, but we have a va- 

 riety of woods brought near by good transportation that 

 more than make up this shortage. The proper timber is 

 available if you go after it, and make the construction 

 man use what you tell him to. It is not as simple as it 

 was when white pine was the only construction timber 

 that was in common use, with white oak and tulip poplar 

 as the only available hardwoods. Wood construction 

 was merely fool proof ; now care must be used for good 

 results. It is useless to lament, when we look at a fine 

 old Colonial house, that we can't get the lumber to build 

 such homes now-a-days. We have better lumber and bct- 



' ter material than was ever put into any Colonial building. 

 But we have got to pay for it and ask for what we want 



' rather than take what we can get at the cheapest rate 

 offered. 



Some excellent advertising by one of these timber 

 sales companies recently appeared. They offer the serv- 

 ices of experts to assist in the choice of timber. The 

 company in question handles all kinds of construction 

 timber, so they were not trying to favor any particular 

 kind. It was mentioned that certain board walks at 

 some of the Atlantic resorts had been in use for over 25, 

 years. Others had to be rebuilt every 5 years, or 10 

 years. Obviously, the right wood was used in some 

 cases, the wrong timber in many others. The company 

 proposed to tell every prospective purchaser just what 

 he should use for his particular work. This is admirable 

 advertising, for few consumers have a good working 

 knowledge of timber. 



To return to the example of the board walks. I have 

 a hazy memory of the walks at Asbury Park and At- 

 lantic City. The last time I saw them I could not have 



told what they were, for wood was wood and that was 

 the extent of my knowledge in that line. But it would 



