VOL. XIV 



FEBRUARY, 1908 



No. 2 



EDITORIAL 



Ostriches vs. P es P. ite the hav< ? C 

 Wise Men nas been wrought in the 

 United States by the 

 wreck of our forests, there is less rea- 

 son for alarm concerning the future 

 than some people fear. There are 

 new ways of doing things. With the 

 use of steel and cement a great deal 

 of the necessity for wood as a build- 

 ing material is disappearing. There is 

 strong ground for hope that the dearth 

 of timber in the United States in 1925 

 will not be as dire as some writers 

 fear. M il:caukcc ll'isconsin. 



This is the kind of writing that does 

 mischief. It blindfolds the eyes to 

 the facts, and lulls to sleep with base- 

 less assurances. It fittingly typifies 

 the ostrich which, by hiding its head 

 in the sand and thus shutting off from 

 its own view all danger, assumes fbat 

 danger does not exi-t. 



Look at a few facts. Here is a 

 Forest Service bulletin : "The Dram 

 Upon the Forests," dated November 

 30, 1907. Speaking on this very ques- 

 tion of substitutes, it says : "The many 

 substitutes for wood that havo been 

 proposed, and to some extent used, 

 have not lessened the demand for tim- 

 ber, as is shown by the fact that the 

 per capita consumption was 



board feet in 1880 and 440 feet in 

 1906." 



How, pray, in the face of such facts, 

 are substitutes to solve the problem? 

 Take the case of cross-ties alone. Of 

 these we use one hundred millions 

 annually. To maintain each one of 

 these ties in the track we must keep 

 two trees growing in the forest. 

 Substitutes have been tried here. In 

 this country, at least, they have -ig- 

 nally failed. At the American Forest 

 Congress of [(^05. Gen. Charles F. 

 Manderson, general solicitor of tin- 

 Chicago. I'.urlington \- Muiucy Kail- 

 road. discussing this point, said: 



\s yet no substitute has been de- 

 vised for wood tii's t] la t is either e< 

 noinical or desirable. Tiny maintain 

 the alignment of tin- railroad tnu 

 which is so essential to safety, her 

 than any metal substitute, and u;ivi 

 elasticity to tin- road bed most import- 

 ant for the preservation and mainten- 

 ance of the rolling stock. With metal 

 ties, or a -tmie base, the raiN would 

 be speedily injured, and the heavy 

 Mo-ul engine- used to-day, drauing 

 the heavy trains ,,f lar-e cars nee' 

 for the traffic, would pound them- 

 sehres <|iiickly into decrepitude and 

 usel< 



