AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 261 



from 90,000,000 to 110,000,000, requiring, we may 

 say, the entire product of 200,000 acres of woodland 

 annually. 



Each year the timber from which these are manu- 

 factured is farther from the base of transportation, 

 and many of the former sources of supply have already 

 been entirely exhausted. Our Pennsylvania railroads 

 now look chiefly to inland Virginia, West Virginia, 

 and Kentucky for their white oak ties ; and the longleaf 

 yellow pine of the southern states will soon disappear. 

 Probably another decade may nearly close these 

 sources of supply. 



The annual consumption of ties on the Pennsylvania 

 Railroad System east of Pittsburg and Erie, for repairs 

 only, is about 3,000,000, this being about the average 

 quantity used every year for repairs in the past ten 

 years. To this should be added, say, one-half million 

 used annually in new work. It is evident, therefore, 

 that at the present rate of consumption the available 

 supply of the present timbers used, especially white 

 oak and yellow pine, will be exhausted to a serious 

 degree before many years, and the time is now ripe 

 for the railroads to consider the question of what 

 course they are to pursue in the future. 



Under these conditions there are obviously two 

 courses : First, the reduction of the amount consumed, 

 which can be done by the substitution of other material 

 for wood, and by the use of preservative methods for 

 prolonging the life of the ties, and which by increasing 

 its durability will diminish the annual requirements 

 for renewals ; and, second, by the adoption of forestry 

 methods having for their purpose the proper care and 

 management of the forests still remaining, and the 

 cultivation of new tree plantations. 



It is to the latter to which I will chiefly confine my 



