CONSEQUENCES OF FOREST DESTRUCTION. 9 
Last year there were 101,000 miles of railway in this 
country, and this year we are building 16,000 miles of 
new railway. All these roads have to be tied with com- 
paratively young timber. I have not at hand an esti- 
mate of the number of ties used per mile, but the an- 
nual consumption is very large. Some years ago to 
build 71,000 miles of railway required 184,600,000 ties. 
Ties have to be replaced every seven years, and it is fair 
to set down the number of ties required annually for 
future consumption at 160,000,000. As every one knows, 
railroad ties are cut from young timber, the trees being 
from eight to twenty inches in diameter, and this de- 
mand strikes at the very source of our timber supply. 
It is a fact that the fences of the United States have 
cost more than the land, and they are to-day the most 
valuable class of property in the United States, except 
buildings, railroads, and real estate in cities. To keep 
up the fences requires annually an enormous consump- 
tion of timber. The 125,000 farms in Kentucky require 
150,000,000 panels of fence to enclose them. The num- 
ber of rails required is set down at 2.000,000,000, cost- 
ing $75,000,000. To repair and keep in good order 
the fences in this one state costs, annually, $10,000,000. 
Illinois, a comparatively new state, has $200,000,000 in- 
vested in fences, but it costs her only about $300,000 an- 
nually for repairs, many of her fences being constracted 
of wire. The whole value of the fences in the United 
States may be set down at $2,000,000,000, and it costs 
$100,000,000 annually to keep them in repair. 
The city of Chicago alone last year employed 17,800 
men in handling lumber. There were 500 clerks, 4000 
wood-workers, 2000 sailors, 1000 men to load and unload 
the vessels, and 10,000 men to handle and prepare the 
lumber for market, besides 300 proprietors. The lumber 
brought to Chicago in 1881 exceeded 2,000,000,000 feet, 
and would have loaded one train of cars 2000 miles long. 
No less than 300 square miles of land was stripped of 
