Exhibit of Timber
It Has Been Brought to the Exposition from
the Forests of the State of Washington
A Wonderful Display
Sections of Gigantic Cedars and Firs Are Shown --
Plans Being Made for the Automobile Race.
Buffalo Express, August 2, 1901
The forestry exhibit from the state of Washington is being set up in the north porch of the agriculture building. It is one of the most interesting displays on the grounds. Speaking of it, Commissioner Elmer E. Johnson of Everett, Washington, said:
"It is a condensed representation of the largest building lumber section on the continent. Washington furnishes more shingles and lumber than any other state in the Union."
A house large enough for a small family, and built out of a single tree trunk, is a feature of the exhibit. The tree was about sixteen feet in diameter at the base. The roof of the house is a single piece of the tree, cut like a slice of sausage, ten feet in diameter.
A section of a yellow fir tree is shown. It is eleven feet in diameter.
The tree from which this piece was taken yielded 75,000 feet of lumber and, as shown by the rings, was over 1,000 years old. Another interesting of the exhibit was brought here to illustrate the lasting quality of the Washington red cedar, which is used extensively in the manufacture of shingles, etc. It consists of the roots of a spruce tree, shown by the rings to be over 500 years old, clasping tightly to a cedar log. The log had lain on the ground for the 500 years or more and yet today shingles made from a part of it are almost as strong and solid as shingles made from growing, flourishing trees.
One of the pieces which cause eastern lumbermen to marvel is a clear plank six feet four inches wide, and 24 feet long, which has not a single flaw.
"The only reason that we did not have that plank 100 feet long and 10 feet wide was because the railroad companies refused to transport it," said the commissioner. "They simply couldn't handle it."