206 ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA. 



building-material will diminish from two or three inde- 

 pendent causes, both or all of which have long been in 

 operation in Europe. In the first place, as the country 

 fills up the rate of increase of population will diminish, 

 more precautions will be taken against fire, and fewer 

 new houses will be built. Second — and much more im- 

 portant — brick, stone, concrete, and other lasting materi- 

 als can and will be substituted for wood at an ever-in- 

 creasing rate. 



Not only in the building trades but in various lines of 

 manufacture is the substitution of other materials for 

 wood proceeding rapidly. It has been very noticeable in 

 the last decade or two in the case of such familiar arti- 

 cles as fences, dams, bridges, mile-posts, signs, tanks, 

 railroad cars, bedsteads, barrels, buckets, umbrella rods, 

 packing boxes (many of which are now made of corru- 

 gated pasteboard), and others too nuinerous to mention. 



Among the commoner forest products of the South 

 cross-ties probably come next in quantity to fuel and 

 building material. Estimating the length of the rail- 

 roads in this state at 5,000 miles, the number of ties at 

 3,000 to the mile, their volume at 40 feet b. m. each, and 

 their average life at five years, the railroads of Alabama 

 alone would consume about 3,000,000 ties a year, equiva- 

 lent to about 120,000,000 feet of timber, which is about 

 one-twelfth as much as the combined output of all the 

 sawmills in the state. The only present hope for dimin- 

 ishing this drain upon the forests seems to lie in treating 

 the ties with preservatives to make them last longer ; for 

 metal and concrete cross-ties have not yet passed the ex- 

 perimental stage in America. 



But taking all things into consideration there does not 

 seem to be much need to worry about the timber supply, 

 • for as it diminishes we will gradually adjust ourselves to 

 changing conditions. (Even if we cannot get along with 

 as little wood as do the Eskimos, Tibetans, Chinese and 

 Arabs, we might in time learn to use it as sparingly as 

 the Spaniards and Mexicans do.) But it is to our ad- 

 vantage to make these conditions change as slowly as 

 possible, and care of the existing forests and economy in 

 the use of the products derived from them is still a good 

 policy, as it always has been. 



