108 
The Secretary relates interestingly how the government man- 
ages its timberlands as a trustee. It gives timber away through 
free-use permits in small quantities to the actual homemaker who 
comes to develop the country, and in larger quantities to communi- 
ties for public purposes. Its system of management is vastly dif- 
ferent from that of a landlord. W hen large quantities of timber 
are harvested from the National Forests, sales are made to the 
highest bidder, but under such restrictions as look to the mainte- 
nance of a lasting supply answering to the needs of the locality, to 
be had without favoritism and without extortionate demand based 
upon the necessity of the consumer. 
ADVANCE IN WOOD PRESERVATION. 
A government expert who is an authority on wood preserva- 
tion, says as follows: "Timber thoroughly treated with proper 
preservatives will last almost indefinitely. Engineers have 
known for years that this is true, but up to the present 
time, at least in America, complicated and expensive plants have 
been necessary for the work, and' wood preservation has often 
been too expensive an operation to allow treated timber to come 
into general use." 
Methods in wood preservation have undergone a marked 
change in the last few years, however, and the work which a few 
years ago was limited to a few experiments carried on in scattered 
parts of the United States has grown with such rapidity that wood 
preservation has become a business which figures most promi- 
nently in the industrial life of this country. 
Each year railroads are treating an increasing portion of their 
cross ties, miners their mine props, farmers their fence posts and 
the men of many other industries are bringing preservatives into 
play to close the pores and prepare the timber they use to resist 
the fungi which cause decay. The work points the way to one 
of the chief means of the conservation of the nation's forest re- 
sources, for as the length of the life of timber is increased the 
drain upon the forests is lessened, and more wood made available 
for use. 
In nearlv all localities in the Rocky Mountains and Pacific States 
is found an abundant supply of certain kinds of timber which 
have onlv a slight commercial importance. Engelmann spruce, 
lodgepole and other kinds of pine, aspen, and cottonwood are 
only a partial list of the kinds of wood which are strong enough 
and' abundant enough to win high value for construction purposes, 
were it not for one single defect which has prevented their general 
adoption. When exposed to the soil and weather they decay so 
rapidly that they have to be renewed too often to justify their use. 
Dead timber of lodgepole pine and other species also is found in 
large tracts, but is sharply discriminated against by all construct- 
ing engineers and contractors. As a matter of fact, the dead tim- 
