A FIELD FOR INVENTIVE GENIUS 



Need of a Substitute for the Wooden Railroad Tie Description 



of the Keystone Steel Railroad Tie 



By MRS. LYDIA ADAMS^WILLIAMS 



OF THE many forms in which nut, tamarack, and spruce is but 

 wood is used, railroad ties oc- seven years, while with some, as the 

 cupy fourth place in the total black oak, it is but four years ; and 

 yearly expenditure, sawed lumber be- when it is further considered that the 

 ing first, firewood second, and shingles supply of hardwood is waning and that 

 and laths third. It has been calculated a timber famine is almost at hand, the 

 that the amount of wood used each fact becomes apparent that there is a 

 year in ties is equivalent to the prod- vital necessity for inventing some tie 

 uct of 600,000 acres of forest, and that to take the place of the wooden tie. 

 to maintain every tie in the track two Statistics gathered by the Forest 

 trees must be growing. Service prove that the timber sup- 

 In the construction of new track and plies of the country, at the present rate 

 for renewals, the steam and street rail- of consumption, will be exhausted in 

 roads used, in 1906, over 100,000,000 thirty-three years. 



cross ties, at an average price of 48 To the unscientific and untraveled 



cents per tie, an approximate value of person who gazes with admiration al- 



over $48,000,000. most amounting to reverence upon 



The woods used varied, but oak large- some particularly fine stand of timber 



ly predominated, forty-four per cent., or which his limited vacation trip brings 



nearly one-half of the ties consumed, be- to his attention, the widely heralded 



ing made of that wood. Southern pines fact that the timber supplies will soon 



came second, being utilized for about be exhausted seems a fallacy unworthy 



one-sixth of all the ties laid. Other of belief. 



woods used were, in the order of their What do we mean by saying that a 



consumption, Douglas fir, cedar, chest- timber famine is at hand? 



nut, cypress, western pine, tamarack. Scattered throughout the United 



hemlock, redwood, lodgepole pine, States there are from 500,000,000 to 



white pine, and others. 700,000,000 acres of land, upon which 



This immense yearly drain upon the more or less timber is growing. The 



forests for railroad ties alone, covering Forest Service in its estimate of the 



a large variety of the principal woods timber now standing places the highest 



grown, emphasizes the need of inventive figure at 2,000,000,000,000 board feet, 



genius to discover some substitute for while the lowest figure of the standing 



wood. timber is 1,400,000,000,000 board feet. 



With nearly 300,000 miles of railroad We are cutting and using timber at the 



trackage, and approximately 2,800 ties rate of 100,000,000,000 board feet a 



to the mile, there are over 800,000 ties year, while the annual growth is but a 



constantly subject to wear and decay, third of the consumption or from thirty 



When it is considered that the service to forty billion feet. Subtract forty 



of the longest-lived tie timbers in gen- from 100 and we see that we are using 



eral use white oak, Douglas fir, chest- each year 60,000,000,000 more board 



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