102 Forest Club Annual 



Attention is called to the following points apparent from 

 Table 1. 



1. Poles cut at any time of the year eventually season 

 until 50 to 55 per cent of the original green weight has evapora- 

 ted. For pine poles this is the air dry condition. 



2. Green pine poles hold, on an average, 870 pounds of 

 water which may be evaporated in from 3 to 9 months. Costs 

 of handling poles during skidding, wagon transportation and 

 freighting make it important and desirable to know at any 

 given time the extent of this loss of weight during seasoning 

 and to foresee the rate of this loss at all periods in order to 

 choose economical times so far as possible for handling the 

 timber. This table holds good for the future and given the 

 approximate time of the cutting of pine poles, their weight at 

 any time can be foretold. Further their relative fitness for pre- 

 servative treatment is immediately apparent from an inspection 

 of the tables. 



3. 40 foot poles cut at any time before August have lost 

 40 per cent of their grown weight or 663 pounds each by the 

 following September. 



4. No season's cut of poles is dry before a later cut as 

 is the case with some pole timbers. 



5. After 50 to 55 per cent of green weight is lost the 

 seasoning continues very slowly until some poles lose 62 per 

 cent of their green weight before the end of the second year. 



6. The time required for seasoning varies from two to 

 ten months according to the time of cutting. 



Table 2 shows the loss in handling poles before they are air 

 dry. The speed of seasoning affects the fiber of the wood con- 

 siderably, and therefore its strength, through strains set up due 

 to uneven shrinking. These strains often result in checks or 

 splits. In slow, even seasoning there is much less strain as the 

 internal moisture has more opportunity to become evenly dis- 

 tributed. In this action there is a vast difference between poles 

 cut in fall and those cut in summer, as is shown in Table 3. 



