“I hope to be able to briefly call the attention of this body of practical manufacturers to a few pertinent facts that may, in a measure, at least, open our eyes to a painful truth, viz., the rapidly decreasing area of hardwood timber in the United States, and when we consider how very little is being done to conserve our forest growth--how the forests are being cleaned from hoop-poles to giant oaks, and that to supply the one item of cross ties that are used in this country alone, about 4,000,000,000 feet of timber is required (clearing about 200,000 acres of wood lot annually), and a large proportion of these ties are cut from thrifty young trees, we must conclude that a matter so weighty as to give us pause. The one hopeful sign of the future is the hope that practical forestry methods may be enforced by the Government.” This in an address from a lumberman to an association of lumber manufacturers is indeed an encouraging sign of the times, but I fear he has waked up “to the realization that our efforts to secure a more rational treatment of our forest resources and apply forestry in their management are not too early, but rather too late: that they are by no means sufficient; that serious trouble and inconvenience are in store for us in the not too distant future; that the blind indifference and the dallying or amateurish playing with the problem of legislatures and officials is fatal.” The railroads and the farmers of the Western plains were among the first to appreciate the importance of making provision for a future supply of construction timber and material for use on the farms. With the far-sighted policy of manipulators of great corporations, the officials of the Santa Fe Railroad were among the pioneers in forest planting in America on railroads, as about twenty years ago they planted 1,280 acres in hardy catalpa at a total expense of $128,000, and they estimated that at the end of twenty-five years from date of planting this tract will have produced $2,500,000 of poles, ties and posts. A few years ago the Illinois Central made a plantation of catalpa and black locust in Illinois and during the current year the Louisville & Nashville Railroad have arranged for a similar plantation in Alabama. It has not been necessary for the farmers of the South to resort to plantations for their supplies of posts and fuel, and if we are not improvident of our supplies it will hardly become necessary, as we have left on nearly every farm enough timber of suitable varieties from which we can procure our future supplies by self-sown seed, provided the sections to be reserved for timber growth are protected from stock and fires. In some instances, however, it may prove cheaper and more expedient to plant as was the case with the now famous yaggy catalpa plantation near Hutchinson, Kan., in which a ten-year-old block showed a net value of $197, or a yearly net income of $19.75 per acre.