Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/187

Rh than the population of North Dakota. During the calendar year of 1911, the Northern Pacific Railway bought 65,398,665 feet of timber. That was sufficient to lay a plank road eight feet wide and two inches thick in a straight line for a distance of 774 miles; in 1910, before the great fall in earnings, necessitating the most rigid economy, the lumber purchased would have been enough to build a similar road from St. Paul to Boston, 1108 miles. In one year the Northern Pacific used 29,470 gallons of paint on freight equipment, cars, and stations. That amount would be sufficient to paint 627 dwelling-houses of average size with two coats. To repaint a building 24 by 55 feet (equivalent to an average nine-room house) requires 47 gallons of paint.

Here are some figures about smaller things: 105,000 lead-pencils are used in a year. That number would have supplied 5250 schoolchildren two pencils per month during a school term of ten months. 4464 penholders are issued in a year. 249,552 pen-points are issued in a year. That number would have Rh