Poles and pole treatment

TO write about poles and the preservative treatment of poles today is like writing the review of a very successful play that has been running a long time. The players are not men, but inanimate poles. The natural backdrop is the forest. The stage is as broad as the United States and the setting is a criss-cross of thousands of miles of utility and communication lines. The engineers of these lines are the producers and directors of the play; and it is they who assign the parts to the various actors and write a changing script as the play progresses. It is the purpose of this paper to present certain highlights of the more important scenes, such as pole use and the drain on the forest, pole manufacture and treatment under standard specifications, and pole strength, and to discuss some possible rearrangements in the setting that may become necessary.