58 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 



TELEGRAPH POLES. 



Between Chicago and Denver, a distance of 1,050 miles, along one line of 

 railway, there are 31,500 telegraph poles. They are set 176 feet apart, or 

 thirty to the mile. As there are considerably more than two hundred thousand 

 miles of steam railway in the United States, increasing in mileage each year, 

 and many roads have double lines of poles to accommodate the great number 

 of wires required to transact the telegraphic business of the country, there are 

 eight million poles in use on railway lines. 



When to this is added the poles used by trolley lines and by telegraph and 

 telephone companies we find an aggregate of fifteen millions poles in use. 

 H these should be replaced at once it would require 250,000 flat cars to trans- 

 port them ; eight thousand locomotives would be necessary to haul the trains, 

 which if continuous would reach 1,750 miles. 



If the poles were placed end to end they would reach more than three 

 times around the earth at the equator. 



A large majority of the poles in use are of white cedar, Thuya occidcntalis, 

 which grows in the swamps of northern Michigan, Wisconsin and in Can- 

 ada. Some are of Oregon Pine, a smaller number are of red cedar, Juniperus 

 Virginiana, while a limited number are sawed from Washington cedar, 

 Thuya gigantea. 



If the trees to replace the poles now in use were growing and forty could 

 be obtained from each acre, it would require 370,000 acres to supply the poles 

 for one renewal. 



Were the seed already sown and started into growth, it would be A. D. 

 2050 when the trees would be of sufficient size to use for first-class telegraph 

 poles. 



There are few American forest trees which combine the qualities neces- 

 sary to make good poles: durability in the ground; great length of trunk; 

 freedom from large side branches which form knots; straight trunk with a 

 regular taper, holding the size to great height. 



The northern swamp White Cedar has long been considered the ideal 

 tree for telegraph poles, but so scarce are these becoming that during the past 

 year or two many car loads of pine from Idaho and Washington have been 

 shipped East to rebuild telegraph lines in both Michigan and Wisconsin, 

 -where the cedar was formerly so abundant. 



The long time required for cedar to grow into a size suitable for this pur- 



