WHERE TO PLANT. 43 



enough to make one tie to a cut and only two 

 or at the most three cuts to a tree. Two will 

 probably be the average. The building of our 

 railroads, therefore, has consumed 198,000,000 

 trees, and those cut off when, if left a few years 

 longer, they would have made a more rapid 

 increase in bulk than they had done in their 

 younger life. It is a generous estimate that 

 allows fifty such trees to be found on an acre 

 of woodland. We have, then, 3,960,000 acres 

 of forest stripped of their most valuable trees in 

 the construction of our existing railroads. 



But this is not all. Railroad-ties last, on an 

 average, seven years. To keep up the equip- 

 ment of our roads, therefore, requires every 

 year 56,571,428 ties, in addition to what are de- 

 manded for the construction of new roads, or 

 the product of 565,714 acres. So that if the 

 railroads would keep themselves good, as it re- 

 quires thirty years to grow trees large enough 

 to make ties, they need 16,971,420 acres devoted 

 to their growth, or 113.3 f r every mile of their 

 length. It may well be considered, therefore, 

 whether the railroad companies should not be- 

 come forest-planters as a matter of self-interest. 



