204 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 
the northern and eastern states had agents scouring these regions for cross-ties ; 
the Standard Oil Company had penetrated the most inaccessible portions of the 
country and secured the cream of the white oak for cooperage. Upon every stream 
large enough to float timber, timbermen were at work getting out logs and trees 
for market. 
A month ago, in another trip over the same mountain country, going by rail as 
far as possible and with a hundred mile horseback ride beyond the railway ter- 
minus, no forests, as such, were found. The valuable timber had been removed. 
the inferior trees were being hauled to the railway and rivers, while thousands 
ot logs which three years ago would not have been looked at the second time, were 
waiting for water to float them out. Many logs were hollow, others badly decayed, 
knotty logs and anything which would give even a little fair lumber. 
Beech, inferior oaks, and trees of slight value were all that remained. The 
present white oak region of the United States is quite limited in extent, for a 
country which consumes and exports such a vast quantity of lumber. 
The president of a great railway system which but a few years since owned 
and controlled millions of acres of fine oak timbered land, recently wrote the 
author : 
“Our vast tracts of timber lands are almost entirely sold, and we are making 
no efforts to advertise them.” 
Personally we are familiar with this formerly timbered section and know this 
to be the case. 
Just how long the oak will last as a lumber supply, cannot be estimated by 
any one, but the most sanguine persons cannot fix a date beyond twenty years 
hence, with a greater probability of a practical exhaustion in half that time. 
White oak is very slow of growth and cannot be reproduced in a size suitable 
for quarter sawing in less than a century ; much that is being cut has been standing 
one hundred and fiftv years. Red oak grows faster, but is not so handsome in 
grain and finish, nor so varied in its utility, while no one, not even the govern- 
ment, is planting either. 
A member of Congress recently remarked, “The government does not plant 
trees,” which is truth in a nutshell. The government investigates. 
Land owners who have oak and other timbers do not protect the young trees, 
and hence at the very best, if the government should at once adopt a true forestry 
policy and have millions of trees planted, there would still be a gap of almost a 
century between the time of an exhausted forest from natural productions and the 
imcoming crop from artificial plantations. 
So the question again arises, After the oak, what? 
Some years ago a noted forestry expert of Massachusetts predicted that in two 
decades the supply of white pine timber in the United States would be exhausted. 
But Professor Sargent did not take into consideration an important factor in the 
case. As white pine increased in value from shortage in supply, the lumber men 
and builders began to use larger quantities of hard woods, birch, maple, and oak. 
where pine had been formerly used. Yellow pine from the South came into 
market, as the price justified long transportation, and hemlock was accepted in 
lieu of pine for general farm stuffs. And thus the limit of pine was extended, a 
small quantity still being in market at high prices. This prediction has been 
