FOREST FABLES. 



HOW A BEAUTIFUL, IRIDESCENT DREA.M OF WEALTH 

 WAS RUDELY SHATTERED BY THE DICTUM OF SCIENCE. 



WE like to print little things now and 

 then about the doings of the scientific 

 manufacturers in the old country, who, 

 with their marvelous instinct for utilizing " all 

 the hog except the squeal," turn shavings into 

 antiseptic dressings for wounds and make elec- 

 tric insulation out of tiny chips, which in this 

 country would go into the refuse-burner. 



You can imagine, then, how attractive the 

 following paragraph appeared in the pages of 

 the canny and dignified Transactions of the 

 Royal Scottish Arboricuttural Society : 



"ALCOHOL FROM SAWDUST. At the recent 

 Congressof Applied Chemistry, held in Berlin, 

 Simonson, of Christiania, described a method of 

 utilizing sawdust in the production of alcohol, 

 which the Country Brewers' Gazette prints. 

 About two tons of sawdust are boiled with sul- 

 phuric acid for three hours, the liquid matter 

 being then extracted by pressure, neutralized, 

 and left to stand for 18 hours to cool and 

 clarify, and then fermented for four or five 

 days. The resulting alcohol is afterward dis- 

 tilled and rectified, and, making ample allow- 

 ance for loss in the latter operation, the yield 

 of spirit is said to be about 2 '/^ quarts per cwt. 

 of sawdust. Trials with the m ;thod on a manu- 

 facturing scale are claimed to have demon- 

 strated the possibility of working at a profit 

 and of opening up a new industry in timber- 

 producing countries, where enormous quanti- 

 ties of sawdust are annually wasted." 



Here seemed a treasure indeed. What good 

 news for the struggling American sawmill 

 man, who bought stumpage years ago at $1.50 

 and now can get only $27 per M for his lum- 

 ber. Hope for the ''fourth great industry of 

 the United States" after all. With this, and 

 the tariff properly adjusted so that the Cana- 

 dians can't compete, there might be a chance 

 to create a few brand new lumber baronies, to 

 the everlasting glory of the Star Spangled 

 Banner. 



"Timber-producing countries where enor- 

 mous quantities of sawdust are annually 

 wasted." That's us (U. S. ) without a doubt. 

 Why, up in the Lake States they built their 

 towns on top of old sawdust piles because there 



wasn't any other place to put them near enough 

 to the mills so the men could take their noon 

 meal at home. They can't get rid of it except 

 by burning it up, as it is against the law to 

 throw it into the streams and the furnaces can 

 only accommodate a limited number of tons 

 per day. 



Two and one-half quarts for every hundred 

 pounds ! Great Snakes ! What sacred rage 

 would not possess the souls of the veteran lum- 

 ber-jacks to think how, all unwittingly, they 

 had sent to the burners or the furnaces enough 

 alcohol in the course of their lives to keep all" 

 the woodsmen of the country oblivious of 

 worldly cares henceforward and forevermore. 



And so the paragraph was carefully clipped 

 and prepared for the March number of FOR- 

 ESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



But it came to pass that in the interests of 

 good journalism the clipping was submitted 

 to a certain wise man, the breath of whose 

 nostrils is the reek of retort and test-tube. 



And he, having examined, announced that 

 he himself had made alcohol by that process 

 some five and twenty years agone, and that in 

 his learned opinion it would take considerably 

 more sulphuric acid and labor than the alcohol 

 would be worth In other words, that the cher- 

 ished process of Simonson, of Christiania, was 

 not worth a tinker's dam for commercial pur- 

 poses, supposing that the method was quoted 

 correctly. 



The bright air castles collapsed. The poten- 

 tial sawdust barons continue to shovel their 

 jag-laden by-product under the boilers, and 

 thank the Lord they don't have to buy coal. 



The bibulous lumber-jack girds up his loins 

 and walks ten miles to get his jug filled when- 

 ever he needs alcohol. 



The world moves on in the old way, using 

 alcohol made from starch, in spite of Simonson 

 of Christiania. 



The man who hoped to revolutionize Ameri- 

 can methods by publishing Simonson 's process 

 sits sobbing softly to himself and reflecting on 

 the perfidy of things in general and of foreign 

 notes in particular. 



Only Carrie of Kansas smiles. 



She : Darling, if you should ever leave me, I know that I would pine away ! 



He : Don't you think it would be better to try t > spruce up? Princeton Tiger. 



Whereupon the fir flew. She gave him a sounding box upon the ear, exclaiming, "You 

 wretch ! No dogwood treat a woman thus ! " The teak-ettle grazed his head as he fled, and 

 she heard hemlock an intervening door. 



