WOOD SUPPLY OF NORTH AMERICA. 123 



sleepers each, i.e. not more than 100 sleepers could be cut from 

 an acre of such timber-land as prevails in the States, so that the 

 lines existing in 1884 had required all available timber from 

 4,131,520 acres. The average "life" of a sleeper is seven years, 

 so that 59,021,700 ties, or the product of 590,217 acres, would 

 be requisite to keep the existing lines in repair. The average 

 length of new line built every year was then about 5000 miles, 

 requiring 13,200,000 ties, or the timber of 132,000 acres. If we 

 allow twenty-five years as the time necessary for trees to attain a 

 size suitable for making ties, then it would require the annual 

 growth of 14,755,425 acres to keep good the existing lines, and 

 3,300,000 to supply the annual demand for new lines, to say 

 nothing of keeping the latter in repair. Not less than 18,000,000 

 acres of woodland need, therefore, to be kept in reserve for the 

 sole maintenance of the permanent way of the railroads of the 

 United States. The annual fuel consumption is reckoned as the 

 produce of 6 J million acres annually, and the entire consumption 

 as 25 million acres. Not only have too many Redwood trees 

 been used for fuel, but of late ordinary building has absorbed a 

 great many, panels of Redwood having become very popular in 

 San Francisco as a substitute for plastered walls, whilst there has 

 also been considerable exportation to China, Hawaii, and the 

 Philippines. Some lumbermen predict that within a few years 

 the Redwood tree will be as scarce as the buffalo, and that a 

 shortage has already begun is evident from the fact that the price 

 of Redwood has risen rapidly from 25 to 45 dollars per 1000 

 square feet. Another serious factor in the question of 

 timber supply in the United States is the extravagant manner in 

 which the turpentine industry is conducted. Instead of any care 

 being taken not to destroy the timber (as is done in the south of 

 France) it has been said that there is no business connected with 

 the products of the soil which yields so little return in proportion 

 to the destruction of the material involved. The turpentine is 

 chiefly obtained in Georgia from the Long-leafed and Loblolly 

 Pines (Pinm palustris and Tceda), and the forests of this State 

 were once unsurpassed, and, if properly husbanded, might have 



