VALUE OF THE DEAD WOOD—INSPECTION. 33 
IN THE REMAINING PARTS OF SOUTH DAKOTA. 
The Black Hills are situated in the extreme southwest corner of 
South Dakota, and the only railroad connection which they have with 
the surrounding territory is southward into Nebraska. It is there- 
fore entirely impracticable to consider a possible use of any of the 
dead timber in parts of South Dakota outside of the Black Hills. 
It appears from the foregoing that only a very small amount of the 
dead timber can be used in the Black Hills, and that practically none 
can be taken to other parts of South Dakota. The only practicable 
method of disposing of this surplus amount would be to ship it out of 
the State, but this is not permissible under the present forest-reserve 
law, as will be pointed out hereafter. 
VALUE OF THE DEAD WOOD. 
The dead wood which ought to be removed from the Black Hills 
Forest Reserve is of all grades and values, and for practical purposes 
it is impossible to draw any lines grading the same which will hold 
good. It must be taken for granted that the only wood which can be 
considered as worth anything at all is wood which shows no sign of 
decay or rot. Mostof the timber, in fact nearly all, will be blue. The 
blue color, as has been previously shown, ought not to make much 
difference as regards its strength, and if properly treated with pre- 
servatives it is probable that the ** blue” wood will be serviceable for 
ties and lagging. 
The wood which is dead in the forest now rots rapidly,-as hes been 
pointed out, and every day that it is left makes large amounts of it less 
valuable than it was before. At best one may expect that timber which 
is killed by the beetles one year will begin to decay after two years. 
In fixing the price of this dead timber it should be remembered that 
in order to get it out, lines of railroad would have to be constructed 
at a very considerable cost. Even with such lines the cost of bringing 
the dead timber from the forest to points where it could be utilized 
would be great. The expense of bringing timber from Montana and 
Wyoming to Nebraska (such cost including the first cost of the timber 
plus the transportation) will about equal the cost of bringing the tim- 
ber from the Black Hills to Nebraska. That the wood must have some 
value to be worth going for at all is obvious, but, as has been pointed 
out, its value will depend upon the rapidity with which it is removed. 
INSPECTION. 
One of the greatest difficulties which will be encountered in the 
utilization of the dead timber will be in connection with the inspec- 
tion of the material used. There will be vast quantities of the timber 
16614—No. 36—03——3 
