FIFTH NATIONAI, CONSERVATION CONGRESS 51 



management by the corporation. There is every incentive for such corporations 

 to utilize planting where it is practicable and such expenditures are an increase 

 of capital to develop property. Capital is usually available and the long time 

 nature of the investment is not an obstacle. 



Public Utility Corporations: The future annual supply of railroad mate- 

 rials, especially cross-ties, is essentially important to every railroad corporation. 

 It is estimated that 15 to 20 per cent of our annual timber consumption is rail- 

 road materials. The working out of the problems of a future supply may or may 

 not have any connection with forest planting. The location of the railroads in 

 reference to forest regions, together with the climatic and physiographic charac- 

 teristics of these regions, the present land holdings of the company, the advisa- 

 bility of using treated ties, etc., are some of the factors entering into the problem. 

 It is no solution of the problem merely to say that if railroads need ties, let them 

 plant trees which will furnish them ; a statement once made in this respect. For 

 one thing, trees planted now for ties will not mature soon enough to meet the 

 shortage of cross-ties which is surely coming. A hundred million planted trees 

 under 6 inches in diameter would not help a railroad in the cross-tie crisis of 

 fifteen or twenty years hence; yet this is no reason why they should not be 

 planted to furnish ties forty years from now. 



So far as the region is concerned, if a railroad traverses a treeless prairie 

 and plains region, such as the Middle West, a policy of planting trees for tie 

 production in that region is not fundamentally sound, and experiments already 

 tried do not seem to warrant further attempts. A treeless, windswept prairie 

 country does not offer, silviculturally, advantageous sites for successful tie pro- 

 duction because of limitation as to species and their growth, as well as other 

 factors. One such railroad which extends to the Pacific coast is experimenting 

 in the planting of eucalypts in Southern California for tie production. This is a 

 possible exception to the general principle just stated, but in this case eucalyptus 

 planting within its limited planting range offers at least a reasonably sound basis 

 for such an experiment; although present indications are that the work will not 

 be extended. 



The source of tie supplies and other railroad material must, then, be our 

 natural forest regions. If a policy of timber land acquirement by a railroad is 

 found to be practicable, or if a railroad owns forest land, planting of forest 

 takes its usual place in the organization and management of the railroad com- 

 pany's forest. 



Lands which have been cut over and burned so badly as to require restocking 

 to secure valuable growth should be planted, and all open lands within the com- 

 pany's holdings made productive in this way. The object of such planting is 

 profit, the highest return per acre possible. Species which will yield material 

 suitable for treated or untreated ties may be selected if adapted to the region 

 and to the sites, but such need not be the ruling factor in making the choice. 

 The object rather is to plant what will bring the best returns, not disregarding, 

 however, the maintaining or improving of the fertility of the site. Railroads 

 with medium to high earning capacity can afford to increase capital account to 



