American Forest Congress 267 



of metal ties is believed to be impracticable by Ameri- 

 can railroad engineers, the maintenance of the supply 

 of wood and ties is of vital importance to the railroads, 

 and through them to the nation at large. In a similar 

 way, the permanence and success of the mining 

 industry is dependent upon cheap and accessible 

 supplies of timber. In most portions of the West such 

 supplies can be expected only from the national forest 

 reserves. In the creation of the reserves, therefore, 

 the special needs of the mining and other industries 

 have been kept carefully, and it is also believed suc- 

 cessfully, in mind." 



Without regard, therefore, for the necessity of 

 preserving our forests for the other purposes equally 

 important to the country, as the means of supply of 

 wood for industrial and domestic purposes, it would 

 appear that railroads, although they are consumers of 

 an enormous amount of wood, their uses of wood form 

 but a fraction — relatively a small fraction — of the 

 yearly consumption of wood. I will, therefore, under- 

 take to discuss some of the details from my personal 

 knowledge of a railroad extending from tidewater 

 on the east to points in Ohio to the northwest, and 

 through Virginia to the southwest, embracing lines 

 into Maryland and North Carolina, in addition to 

 other lateral lines within reasonable limits of timber 

 for its entire distance. 



Originally the country passed through by the railroad 

 to which I refer, was welljimbered. The first exten- 

 ^ sive depletion of timber land was on the first hundred 

 miles adjacent to the seaboard, where the original 

 timber was cypress and Virginia or loblolly pine. Up 

 to the year 1888 this road used a great many cypress 

 ties, but such timber is no longer procurable. The 

 second growth of Virginia loblolly pine in this same 



