8 
are appended, with the design of showing whatever objections have 
been raised to the practicability of railroad companies engaging in 
active forestry. 
I would call particular attention to the original work of Mr. P. H. 
Dudley, the study of which will prepare one for a more critical esti- 
mate of the processes employed for wood preservation, so ably pre- 
sented by Col. Henry Flad, to which also some notes have been ap- 
pended taken from a paper kindly prepared by Mr. Howard Constable, 
C. E. These papers are intended to appeal and give information to the 
business or unprofessional man who may be interested in the subject, 
and who is frequently the motive power of operations conducted by 
professional men. It should be added, that while it has been the cus- 
tom to describe the different processes of wood preservation, coupling 
each with the use of certain antiseptics, or, vice versa, to speak of anti- 
septics as necessitating the employment of certain processes; and 
though in the main Colonel Flad has followed this customary treat- 
ment of the subject there is no good reason for continuing such strict 
classification: the practical man will observe the practical expedients 
of all the processes and select and combine them to meet the require- 
ments of his special case, cutting away from the hampering influence 
of mere precedent, and adopting the best means to an end, thus carry- 
ing out what Mr. Constable is pleased to call the " American idea of 
wood-preserving processes." 
In connection with these papers I would also refer the reader to a 
very valuable report on wood -preservation made by a committee of the 
American Society of Civil Engineers to that body at its annual conven- 
tion in June, 1885. 
A new interest in the line of wood-preserving processes has been 
added in the economical applications of wood -creosote oil, made from 
the Southern pine, a report on which was kindly prepared by Capt Win. 
H. Bixby, U. S. A. 
Particular attention is called to the reference table for comparing 
annual charges, prepared by the writer, which does away with all cum- 
bersome calculations hitherto practiced even by engineers. 
The notes on metal ties, prepared in this office, though jjerhaps not 
exhaustive, will furnish nevertheless ready references for the use of 
engineers, and give cumulative evidence of the practicability and de- 
sirableness of this substitute for wooden ties. While the treatment of 
this subject from the railroad engineer's point of view may seem at 
first sight not germane to the work of the Forestry Division, I think it 
cannot be denied that forest preservation must be indirectly but most 
effectively and practically promoted among this class of consumers by 
just such a presentation of the experiences, so far had, with a substitute 
for what involves one of the most wasteful and destructive uses of our 
forest resources. 
