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MISC. PUBLICATION 3 9 5, U. S. DEPX. OF AGRICULTURE 



Small and young timber cut in making improvement thinnings in overcrowded 

 stands can often be sold or used on the farm for posts, poles, or firewood, instead 

 of being allowed to decay in the woods (fig. 26). 



Treating fence posts: Short-lived woods when soaked in hot and then cold 

 creosote last from 10 to 20 years as fence posts. As the supply of Ions-lived 

 woods, such as black locust, osage-orange, eastern red cedar, American chestnut, 

 mulberry, and catalpa becomes less, treated fence posts are being increasingly 

 used. Almost all farms grow some common woods which take coal-tar creosote 

 readily. 



Practical things to do. — In a field trip to the farm forests note what care is taken 

 in felling trees, the disposition of limbs and tops, and the height of the stumps. 

 Note examples of use of expensive wood where a cheaper wood might do. Note 

 the high-priced timber in the district. Determine the common method of treating 



F-39250-A 

 Figure 26. — Small pine logs from thinnings made to improve the grov/th and quality of the stand. 



fence posts in the neighborhood. Examine telephone and telegraph poles to see 

 how they are treated. Make a list of good and bad examples of the use of farm 

 timber. 



Make a report on the methods of cutting and handling timber on the farm, 

 with especial reference to disposing of waste timber. Write a short account of 

 the best methods for preserving timber used in posts, railroad ties, and other 

 lumber. 



Measure the height of stumps in a tract of cut-over timber and calculate the 

 amount of lumber wasted. If one hundred 7-foot walnut fence posts, averaging 

 5 inches square, can be replaced by 100 locust or red cedar posts of the same size, 

 calculate, on the basis of local prices, the amount saved by the substitution. If 

 treating a softwood post with creosote costs 15 cents, but will make it last three 

 times as long as one not treated, assum.ing average present local prices for labor 

 in replacements and cost of untreated posts, what will be saved in 20 years in 

 fencing a quarter section of land with posts spaced 12 feet apart .^ 



