Lost Four Days in Woods.

1916

Dixville Notch, N. H., Sept. 24. — Lost for nearly four days in the wilderness of the northern foothills of the White mountains, Joseph A. Dennison, former assistant district attorney of Suffolk county, Mass., and his wife, were found early today. They had suffered greatly from lack of food and sleep, but it was not thought their hardships would cause permanent injury to their health.

The Dennisons were found in an abandoned logging camp on the shores of Dead Diamond stream in the Dartmouth college grant, a wild section of country near the hotel from which they had set out Wednesday afternoon on a walk which they expected to finish before dinner.

In seeking to return they had lost their bearings in the almost trackless woods, and for two days had wandered in quest of a habitation. Not until Friday did they find shelter in an old lumber shack, where they remained, too tired to go further, and not knowing which way to turn. The discovery was made by Earl Gould and Scott Copp, employes of the hotel, who will divide a reward of $1500, of which $1000 was offered by Daniel H. Coakley of Boston, brother of Mrs. Dennison, and $500 by Thomas G. Washburn of that city, a close friend of the former district attorney.

It was early this morning that the young men, who had been tramping the vicinity of Dead Diamond stream through the night in a heavy rain, came on the abandoned logging camp in which the Dennisons had taken refuge. After giving such help as was possible under the circumstances, one of the young men went to a farm at Wentworth's Location, several miles away, and from there telephoned.

Although it was 10 miles from Dixville Notch to the shack where the Dennisons were found, it was necessary to send a team 25 miles over back country roads to bring them back.

Both the attorney and his wife were so overcome at the sight of their rescuers that they broke down and cried.

That the Dennisons were not found sooner was due to a series of coincidences. During their stay at the hotel they had occasionally gone away on trips that took one or two days, and their absence Wednesday night aroused no comment.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 2.

Using the Forests

1916

Not more than 30 per cent of the timber in the forests of the United States is ever utilized as lumber, according to figures recently compiled by the Office of Industrial Investigations of the Forest Service. Seventy per cent, chiefly in tops, limbs, stumps, bark, sawdust, slabs and small and defective trees, is for the most part wasted. Of the wood in the individual tree 33.5 per cent is made into lumber and of the logs which reach the mill 40.3 per cent is worked up into lumber.

New uses for waste products are constantly being discovered. It is reported that dolls' heads are now being made from a composition of wood flour and rye flour. A planing mill company in California has discovered a profitable use for odds and ends, such as are generally sold for fuel under the name of mill blocks. It has established a shop for the manufacture of children's toys, which it is turning out by the carload. Another California plant is working up blocks into dowels; another into beekeepers' supplies.

Thru the medium of the Wood Waste Exchange organized and maintained by the Forest Service much waste material is finding use.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 6.

The Tree Doctor

1907

His Method of Treating a Trunk That is Decaying

When a tree doctor treats a decayed tree he begins by cutting an aperture in the tree large enough to allow him to get at the inside and remove all the decayed wood. This is essential to the success of the operation.

When this work has been done the cavity is ready to be filled. The composition used in case of large fillings contains five parts of sand to one part of portland cement, except for the outer part, where these ingredients are used half and half, this outer coating being several inches thick. To hold the cement in place while it is hardening a stout tin or zinc is employed, this being secured to the trunk of limb in a way to preserve the natural shape. The tin is put on in strips, being fastened with round steel nails having a broad head and a small shank. The strips are wide enough to lap over upon the sound wood, and the nails are placed from half an inch to an inch apart, according to the strain imposed.

The first strip of tin is put on at the lower part of the aperture and the cement put in until it reaches nearly to the top of the tin. Then a second strip is put on, lapping over the other two or three inches, and the two nailed together. Then more cement is used, and so on until the cavity is filled, the last strip of tin being bent down while the final application of cement is being puddled into place and the cavity entirely filled, and then it is straightened up and nailed in place. In case of extra large cavities large sheets of tin or sheet iron are nailed on the outside to prevent the tin from bulging out until the cement has hardened, when they can be removed. The smaller the cavity the larger are the strips of tin employed, as the strain is proportionately less. In twenty-four hours' time the cement will have hardened completely, and the tin may all be removed. This remedy is applied successfully to fruit trees as well as shade trees. — New York Tribune.

Tolstoy Made His Will In Thick, Dense Forest

1914

How Tolstoy Made His Will.

How Tolstoy made his will is told in the annual of the Tolstoy society by Alexej Sergejeno, who was one of the witnesses. On July 22, 1910, he was summoned by a lawyer, who said that Tolstoy wanted to make his will without an hour's delay. They rode away at once to the meeting place, a mile from Tolstoy's home. He met them and led the way into a dense forest.

"In the thickest part of all," the narrative continues, "we stopped at a big stump of a tree. Tolstoy sat down on the stump, took a fountain pen from his pocket and asked for a sheet of paper. With feet crossed he began to make the rough sketch of his will." It was completed, signed and witnessed then and there, and then "he rose, and going to his horse said to me. 'How ghastly all this legal business is!' With an activity remarkable in a man of eighty-two, be swung himself into the saddle and vanished quickly in the dark greenery of the undergrowth."