rotation of timber can be obtained. If
the white oak tie is desired , the growth
would not be attained under forty-five
years.
The financial aspect of the undertak
ing is not at all unsatisfactory. A plan
tation of catalpas , in Kansas , in seven
years began to reimburse the owner by
thinning , the trees having attained a
height of from 18 to 20 feet , and making
two fence posts each , and the experience
has been duplicated in many places. No
one will assert that first-class ties will
be procured fifteen years hence at pres
ent prices. If the cost per tie in 1915 be
placed at 75 cents , a very low estimate ,
the value of an acre of ties , cultivated
as suggested , will be $2,100 , with a life
for the timber grown four times that of
the best white oak. The land purchased
will still be the property of the railway ,
but deduct its cost , say $50 per acre ,
and $2,050 remains as the result of the
investment , or $135 per acre per year as
the value of the crop. What farmer
can point to a yield so satisfactory ? The
expense will have been so slight that
the value of the thinnings will bo found
sufficient to more than pay for the at
tention required. But it may be urged
that fifteen years is a long way off , and
that we should take' 'no thought for the
morrow , for the morrow shall take
thought for things of itself. Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof. " The
advice may be good philosophy , but it
is very indifferent practice in railroad
affairs , and is not observed by any
rational official.
The cultivation of forests would not
be unattended with expense and super
vision ; it is a kind of agriculture and
not merely the planting of seeds or
plants ; they must be cultivated and
cared for systematically and intelli
gently until they are sufficiently large
to shade out grass and weeds , until
which time grass and weeds must be
destroyed ; they must also have protec
tion against fire and live stock , and be
managed ay an investment. In proper
tiou to the extent of the undertaking , it
would require a forester who should
have absolute control of the forestry ;
section men should be instructed by him
how to protect the growing timber , not
as a part of their regular work , but in
the manner they now care for the tele
graph line , in emergencies , until the
lineman arrives. Such service would
not be expensive , and the forester should
be required to keep detailed records of
the successes and failures of his depart
ment for future guidance.
The national government is ready to
extend a helping hand to any railroad
which desires it. The division of for
estry of the department of Agriculture
will give practical assistance to tree-
planters in the selection of the right
tree to plant , and in planting them
rightly. The division will make exam
ination of the ground proposed as a for-
est , prepare a plan for planting and car
ing for a plantation , which will best
promote and increase the present value
and usefulness of the laud to the owner ,
and develop and perpetuate a plantation
of forest trees upon it. Upon the com
pletion and acceptance of the plan by
the owner , the division will supervise
the execution thereof , so far as may be
necessary. If the area does not exceed
five acres no charge will be made for
services , but the division will not par
ticipate in the expense of planting and
caring for a plantation except to defray
the salary and expenses of its represen
tative. If the area exceeds five acres a
preliminary visit of inspection , if re
quired , will be wholly at the expense of
the division. If a plan is made and
accepted , the owner must pay the ex
penses of the division officials according
to a priqted schedule of cost of services ,
which will always determine the
amount of the anticipated expenditures.
The department in every instance re
serves the right to publish and distrib
ute the plan for the information of
others.
The general government has sounded
the alarm , and as loyal citizens we
should respect the warning. The pro
gressive idv.as which characterize rail
road officials should cause them to be
zealous advocates of a subject which
concerns them so intimately and to sup
port the state and national regulations
respecting forestry. There is no way in
which the present vague and imperfect
knowledge of the subject can be changed
into an active earnest interest in for
estry than by an accurate acquaintance
and agitation of the question. If rail
road men become aroused to the impor
tance of forestry , not only to the service
but to the public of which they are a
part , and with whom they must suffer
any general condition , a sentiment will
be awakened which will work wonders
and cause future generations to rise and
bless us. J. Hope Sutor , in Railway
Age.
ALEXANUKK MAJORS.
Old Otoe county settlers will be pleased
with this pen picture of an old friend ,
drawn by a master hand. Mr. Majors
was a resident of Nebraska City for
nearly ten years.
"Ah , the old days ! How fast they
are fled and how far J Was California
ever at the ends of-the earth ? Was
there really a paleozoic time when men
walked a continent's width to get to it ;
and a letter home cost as much postage
as two hundred and fifty letters require
now ; and the Santa Fe trail was the
overland line , with prairie schooners for
Pullmans ; a day of bnllwhackers and
the pony express ? Aye there was so
long ago that doubtless not forty per
cent , of the easy people who dwell in
California now could give any intelli
gible account of what all things were
and meant. How many of us are aware
of Alexander Majors , who died the other
day at the mild age of 80 ? Yet this
old man , superseded and poor , ran the
first mail route and the first freight line
across our continent. His caravans dot
ted the great plains , his headlong riders
carried across a 2,000 mile desert the
fastest mail the world has ever seen , at
$5 the half-ounce letter. Forty thous
and oxen were locomotives to his Mer
chants' Express. Five thousand men
were in his employ. They were the link
between the hundred thousand rovers
and the old folks at home. And now ?
Why we sit in upholstery and are in
Chicago in three days. And so is a two-
cent letter. Maybe there is no royal
road to learning ; but California is made
easy even though many never learn
anything when they get here. As for
the pioneers , they are few now.
They were of the size of men , and an
other of the larger of them is gone , now ,
where railroads shall never come God
rest him. Charles F. Lummis , in the
Laud of Sunshine.
AB AINK
IRISHMAN.UP ° U the acquisi
tion of the Hon.
Patrick Egau , by the Bryanarohists , the
New York Evening Post says :
"The last of the 'Elaine Irishmen * has
gone over to Bryan , without even a part
ing tear from the Tribune. Patrick
Ford and the Hon. Patrick Egan simply
cannot resist the 'superb1 democratic
platform , and have cast in their lot- with
the Nebraska reviler of the hated Saxon.
They are perfectly consistent. It is the
republican party that has changed , not
they. When they and their kind were
coddled and honored by the republicans
in 1884 and 1888 , the Tribune and the
other party oracles were accusing Cleve
land and the democrats of being tools of
England , just as Bryan now taunts Mo-
Kinley with his 'ill-concealed' British
alliance. In other words , the Blaine
Irishmen went then , as they go now ,
with the loudest threats and the most
voluble promises of a quarrel. Blaine
boasted of being able to make good , by
these Irish recruits , the defection of
conscience republicans who could not
stomach his candidacy. Now they have
gone over to a demagogue who can out-
olare even Blaine , and in their places
the republican party is welcoming men
like Mr. Fairchild , whom it attacked for
English truckling. It is a pretty com
plete change of partners ; and in the
disgust which the republicans now feel
for their late allies , they have a good
measure of their own disgrace in ever
having stooped to base arts to win such
support. "
The enemies THE
. ,
THANKS. _ ,
CONSERVATIVE has
made are its chief pride. They as a rule
pay uo taxes. They establish industries
never. They improve nowhere. They
are fused with calamity , amalgamated
with disaster.
