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much land within the projects whose only use will be to grow timber 

 crops for local needs. The planting of these areas will receive due 

 attention also. 



FOREST PRODUCTS. 



To aid the economical use of the materials which come from the 

 forest is the work of the office of forest products. The office com- 

 prises the four sections of forest measurements, wood preservation, 

 wood chemistry, and wood utilization. 



The section of forest measurements includes forest computation and 

 forest maps. Forest computation embraces plans for field work in 

 forest measurements, the working up and putting into final form of 

 all the measurements and statistics gathered by the Service in all its 

 lines of work, and the carrying on of investigations in the mathematics 

 of timber cruising and log scaling. Forest maps involves the planning 

 and making of maps, drawings, and diagrams, the determination of 

 areas of forest types from maps, the custody of original and reference 

 maps and map data, and responsibility for the development and appli- 

 cation of systems for mapping all forest data gathered by the Service. 



In the section of wood preservation experiments are carried on to 

 determine economical means of handling and treating wood to insure 

 its greatest service. Practically all work is done in cooperation with 

 persons or companies directly interested in the results. In coopera- 

 tion with railroad companies improved methods have been found of 

 treating with preservatives cross-ties of red fir, lodgepole pine, west- 

 ern 3^ellow pine, red oak, and loblolly pine. Studies in progress on 

 hemlock, tamarack, western larch, western hemlock, and eucalyptus 

 have demonstrated the necessity of air seasoning to secure a uniform 

 absorption of the preservative. Cooperative studies with telephone 

 and telegraph companies, directed to the preservation of poles, have 

 led to the establishment of test lines in which green poles, seasoned 

 poles, and treated poles are placed successively to determine the last- 

 ing qualities of each sort through a period of years. As a result of 

 studies in the grading, seasoning, and treating of cross-arms, it is 

 expected to obtain a more uniform, efficient, and economical treatment 

 for this and similar classes of material. A study of the preservative 

 treatment of loblolly pine mine props has shown that these timbers 

 can be efficiently treated without the application of pressure and with 

 no more complicated apparatus than an open tank. The advisability 

 of peeling and seasoning the props has also been demonstrated. In 

 cooperation with the city of Minneapolis, an investigation is being 

 made of various woods for paving blocks. In order to promote the 

 preservative treatment of wood, the Service will, wherever possible, 

 cooperate with those confronted by the important problem of pre- 

 venting decay of timber. 



