Part 2 (1/2)

Our native supplies of hardwoods and softwoods are used for general building purposes, for farm repairs, for railroad ties, in the furniture and veneer industry, in the handle industry, and in the vehicle and agricultural ie each American farmer uses about 2,000 board feet of lu decreased in the several years following the World War, due to the high price of lu, millions of dollars worth of farm machinery stood out in the weather Livestock lacked stables in so was done in that period in two hundred and fifty prosperous agricultural counties in thirty-two different states

The railroads consume about 15 per cent of our total lumber cut

They use between 100,000,000 and 125,000,000 railroad ties a year It used to be that most of the cross-ties were of white oak cut close to the places where they were used Now Douglas fir, southern pine and other woods are being used largely throughout the Middle Western and Eastern States The supply of white oak ties is so, hite oak was abundant, the railroads that now are using other cross-ties would not have even considered such material for use in their roadbeds The fact that other ties are now being used emphasizes the fact that we are short on oak timber in the sections where this hardwood formerly was comrade and quality The factories of this industry have ion as the supply of hardwoods becainally, these factories were located in the Northeastern States Then, as the supplies of hardwood tiave out, they moved ard They rein hardwood forests of the Middle West were practically exhausted The furniture industry is now largely dependent on what hardwoods are left in the remote sections of the Southern Appalachians and the lower Mississippi Valley When these limited supplies are used up, there will be very little rowth timber in the country for them to use

The furniture, veneer, handle, vehicle, autoricultural implement industries all are in competition for hardwood tirade hardwood lumber annually Production of timber of this type for furniture has decreased asthe past few years It is now difficult for the furniture factories and veneer plants to secure enough raw reen lumber artificially are few It used to be that the hardwood lu sold Furniture dealers now have to buy the reen from the sawh prices Theyand to supply their trade

The veneer industry provides furniture manufacturers, musical instrument factories, box rade material The industry uses annually 780,000,000 board feet of first quality hardwood cut froum and white oak are the hardwoods most in demand In the Lake States, a branch of the veneer industry which uses maple, birch and basswood is located Oak forum has replaced the oak, as the supplies of the latter timber have dwindled At present there is less than one-fourth of a norht Even the supplies in the farely dependent on the timber of the southern Mississippi Valley The veneer industry requires best-grade s are demanded that are at least 16 inches in dia harder every year to secure such logs Like the furniture industry, the veneer ood timber

No satisfactory substitutes for the hickory and ash used in the handle industry have yet been found About the only stocks of these timbers now left are in the Southern States Even in those parts the supplies are getting short and it is necessary to cut timber in the more ree is even more serious than that of hickory timber

The supplies of ash in the Middle West States north of the Ohio River are practically exhausted The deer even than before the World War The entire world depends on the United States for handlesto pay high prices for ash and hickory ti tracts of hardwood timber When these reserves are cut over, these dealers will be in the same position as the rest of the trade

Ash and hickory are in dericultural implement industries They also use considerable oak and compete with the furniture industry to secure what they need of this timber Most of these plants are located in the Middle West but they draw their timber chiefly from the South Hickory is a necessary wood to the vehicle industry for use in spokes and wheels The factories exert every effort to secure adequate supplies of ti camps The automobile industry now uses considerable hickory in the wheels and spokes of motor cars

Most of the stock used by the vehicle industry is purchased green Neither the luh kilns for curing this greenare heavy, running as high as 40 per cent Many substitutes for ash, oak and hickory have been tried but they have failed to prove satisfactory On account of the shortage and the high prices of hickory, vehicle factories are using steel in place of hickory wherever possible Steel is more expensive but it can always be secured in quantity when needed

Further

Thus we see that our resources of useful soft woods and hard woods have both been so dient necessity

CHAPTER VI

THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE FOREST--FIRE

Our forests are exposed to destruction by many enemies, the worst of which is fire From 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 acres of forest lands annually are burned over by destructive fires These fires are started in many different ways They htning strikes in many forests every sunites many trees In the South people so Settlers and faret out of their control Campers, tourists, hunters, and fisher to extinguish their caines also cause fires

Cigar and cigarette stubs and burning matches carelessly thrown aside start many forest fires Occasionally fires are also maliciously set by evil-minded people

The officers of the National Forests in the West have beco down the people who set incendiary fires

They collect evidence at the scene of the fire, such as pieces of letters and envelopes, matches, lost handkerchiefs and similar articles They hunt for foot tracks and hoof marks They study automobile tire tracks They make plaster of Paris impressions of these tracks They follow the tracks--sometimes Indian fashi+on

Often there are peculiarities about the tracks which lead to the detection and punishment of the culprits A horse may be shod in an unusual manner; a man may have peculiar hob nails or rubber heels on his boots or else his footprints ers play the parts of detectives very well This novel police work has greatly reduced the number of incendiary fires

[Illustration: FOREST FIRES DESTROY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF TIMBER EVERY YEAR]

A forest fire may destroy in a few hours trees that required hundreds of years to grow A heavy stand of tiot to put out a cas and ho the dry su, the fire will run for many miles

It always leaves woe and desolation in its wake A o burned over an area of two thousand square miles It killed about fourteen hundred people and destroyed manyforest fire in Michigan laid waste a tract fortyMore than four billion feet of lumber, worth 10,000,000, was destroyed and several hundred people lost their lives In recent years, a destructive forest fire in Minnesota caused a loss of 25,000,000 worth of timber and property

There are several different kinds of forest fires Soround Where the soil contains much peat, these fires ive off any noticeable s wood, tree roots and siround fires can be stopped only by flooding the area or by digging trenches down to the ht surface fires is to throw sand or earth on the flames Where the fire has not made reen branches, wet gunny sacks or blankets The leaves and debris may be raked away in a path so as to impede their advance