CHESTNUT TIMBER GOING TO WASTE 



By ROBERT T. MORRIS 



IN THE vicinity of New York a 

 very large amount of valuable 

 chestnut "timber is now going to 

 waste, and it seems to me that it would 

 be worth the while of some lumbering- 

 concern to take charge of the situation. 

 The chestnut blight, which has rapidly 

 made its way from the South, reached 

 this locality in serious form about three 

 years ago. Practically the entire chest- 

 nut stand of Long Island is going under, 

 and the magnitude of the loss does not 

 seem to be comprehended. North of 

 New York City, in Westchester County, 

 and Connecticut, the blight was no- 

 ticed as a menace two years ago. At 

 that time eight or ten trees on my 

 country place presented blight signs, 

 and this last autumn many hundred 

 trees were affected on my grounds. 

 The chestnut forest in the vicinity of 

 New York must be very valuable for 

 somebody, although the area is so heav- 

 ily timbered that there is little short- 

 age of hardwoods. Consequently it 

 is almost imposible to dispose of tim- 

 ber to local dealers excepting solid 

 tracts, to be cut clean of all timber. 

 Lumbermen accustomed to large 

 operations do not realize that the de- 

 serted farms of New England have re- 

 verted to forest, and that there are wild 

 deer within seventeen miles of New 

 York City limits on two sides. Mil- 

 lions of feet of fine chestnut timber, 



valuable for planking, piles, telegraph 

 poles, and cord wood, will be lost with- 

 in the next two years. Right now the 

 blighted trees are still good for cutting 

 purposes. I tried to dispose of about 

 1,000 chestnut trees, but could not find 

 a purchaser. All of my neighbors are 

 in the same predicament. "No market," 

 is the regular reply to all of my letters 

 asking dealers if they want hardwood 

 of any sort. Forty or fifty cords of 

 hardwood were rotting on the ground 

 last autumn because I could not find 

 any one who wanted cord wood that 

 had been split and stacked while clear- 

 ing part of the property three years 

 ago. I gave away twenty cords re- 

 cently, but could not find any one who 

 would haul the wood ''on halves," leav- 

 ing one cord at my woodpile for every 

 cord that he would take for himself. 



It is a pity now to see the magnifi- 

 cent chestnut forest going to ruin with 

 blight, because there is so little market 

 near New York for chestnut timber 

 and lumber. There are plenty of fine, 

 straight trees thirty or forty feet to the 

 first limb, and measuring from two to 

 three feet or more in diameter. These 

 are to be lost so quickly that they will 

 be gone before lumbermen realize that 

 profits might be made by operating 

 over a territory reaching in a circle of 

 say fifty miles about this city, and ship- 

 ping the products to regions where 

 there is really a shortage of timber. 



