69 



The General Government of the United States owns about 50,000,000 

 to 70,000,000 acres of forest area, principally in the far West and on 

 the Pacific ranges, and mostly on Ijand not fit for agricultural purposes. 

 The water supplies for the valleys and the agric^iltural areas of these 

 regions are regulated and influenced to a great extent by the forests, 

 and it is therefore obvious that the matter of preservation and protec- 

 tion of the forests is one of importance to the national prosperity ; 

 whereas, in fact, the timber is recklessly used and wasted, while the 

 attempts to prevent the waste are practically ineffectual. A bill to 

 protect the Government forests has, however, been submitted to Con- 

 gress. The report referred to shows very forcibly the need of legisla- 

 tion in this direction, and of proper management to regulate the cutting,, 

 to attend to the maintenance and i^rotection, and to undertake the 

 planting of new forests to furnish a future supply of timber. 



Of course these remarks apply to the consumption in total, but the 

 railways are responsible to a considerable- extent, both on account of 

 the immense amount legitimately consumed for ties, bridges, trestles^ 

 buildings, etc., and on account of their waste and the amount improp- 

 erly acquired. The report states as follows : 



Every land-grant railTT ay, in addition to its sliaro of the land grant of 75,000,000 

 acres and the right of way, ivS permitted to cut timber "for first construction, adja- 

 cent to the line of its road." But the railways do not consider ''construction" and 

 " adjacent" exactly in Ihe sense in which the lawgivers did, and they have cut 

 wherever, whenever, and for what purpose they chose. 



Eailway men as a rule do not give much attention to the sources of 

 supply for ties, but, with others, believe blindly in '' inexhaustible " for- 

 ests, or if they do look forward at all to a diminished supply, they 

 usually consider it as too far in the future to require any special atten 

 tion now. In point of fact, however, this is even now a very important 

 matter, which becomes more serious every year. Forests, although they 

 can be made to furnish regular annual crops, can not be grown in a year^ 

 and while present resources are being recklessly drawn upon, few steps 

 are being taken to j)rovide future resources. 



There are four ways in which the railways may help to economize 

 the present supply : (1) By taking more care in the selection, cutting, 

 and storing of timber,- (2) by the more general use of iron, steel, stone, 

 brick, concrete, etc., for bridges, trestles, buildings, and other construc- 

 tion works 5 (3) by the introduction of some efficient and economical 

 preservative process -, and (4) by the introduction ot metal cross-ties. 

 These four methods ot economizing will be considered separately. 



1. By talcing more care in the selection^ cutting j and storing oftimher, — 

 Sufficient investigation has not been made of the availability of dif- 

 ferent kinds of timber for railway work. For instance, there are prob- 

 ably other kinds ol timber besides those now used which are suitable 

 for ties, and, in fact, a circular was issued some months ago by the For- 

 estry Division* showing the advantages of the hitherto unused chestnut 



*See Circular on p. 52. 



