THE RELATION OF RAILROADS TO FOREST SUP- 
PLIES AND FORESTRY. 
By M. G-. Kern, Agent of the Department. 
A discussion of the relation of the railways to the forests of America 
may be preceded appropriately by a glance at the origin and growth of 
the railroad system. 
The year 1825 will be always memorable in American history for the 
completion of the first great work of kiternal improvement in the 
United States, the Erie Canal, constituting a navigable water-way be 
tween the Hudson Kiver and Lake Erie, through which the vast terri- 
tory tributary to the Northern Lakes was opened to the commerce of 
the world by a channel far more advantageous to American interests 
than that offered by the Saint Lawrence Kiver. 
The completion of this work decided forthwith the question of su- 
premacy amongst Atlantic seaports, and to New York harbor hence- 
forth the products of the newly-opened empire of agriculture and pro- 
duction floated to find their outlets into the world's commerce. 
Aroused to unprecedented exertion to counterbalance the advantages 
gained by New York, the commercial and shipping interests concen- 
trated around Chesapeake Bay united in undertaking a railway to con- 
nect the tide-water of the bay with the Ohio Eiver, necessitating the 
passage of the Allegheny Mountains, which was quite impracticable by 
means of a canal. 
On July 4, 1828, the citizens of Baltimore assembled to break ground 
for the inauguration of this work, the magnitude of which, and its elec- 
trifying influence on the entire country, could not be fully foreseen on 
that memorable day. 
In 1830 the Baltimore and Ohio Bailway, in the earliest stage of its 
growth, extended 23 miles west of the city of Baltimore, and was oper- 
ated for the first two years by horse-power. 
The invention of the locomotive, following soon afterward, gave the 
impetus which brought into existence the giant railway system, to which 
is due, in great measure, the rapid commercial, social, and political 
development of the North American continent. 
11 
