I never knew that. Thanks for posting.

X2 Good info

My smoker is not trading brisket for brussel sprouts

If I remember right the average family went through 4 1/2 to 8 Cords a year depending on where they lived and the size of the house. The amount of wood consumed during that era is unimaginable now. Many think Mesa Verde was abandoned simply because they ran out of wood. Haven't even brought up wildfires but it's easy to imagine just how much they played into it, since they were impossible to fight back then. Our own native Americans were responsible for many an accidental fire. Archaeology tells us early man started burning wood around 20,000 years ago if not longer.

Those fires were not all accidental that were started by the native Americans.
They learned that burning the prairies brought new grasses for grazing, and deliberately set fires to get rid of the undergrowth, and thus help maintain their food supply.

I've read that many times and don't doubt for a moment that they intentionally started fires but it's the reasoning I question. They knew very well that once a fire started it was out of control, it could turn on them, it could impact other tribes and destroy most wildlife in it's path. While it sounds romantic with a stewards of the earth twist I don't see that happening. Read some of the older material from that time period of westward expansion and you'd be amazed at how many times the prairies/plains were on fire. Lightning does what it does, hell maybe that's what it was designed for I don't know but it's been keeping the plains regions burnt down for thousands of years.

Damn snow flakes.
They say, over a million & no two are d same.

From what been told (global warming) all a myth.
By same ones that say: Guns don't kill...

so i done left me gun at d house & taken me Blazer
out hunten, do some (redneck-road kill hunten)...
Found me a funnel, tis marked, deer crossing...

side effects ta wearing hat instead of helmet while riding a motorcycle
& totaling out a pick-up...
Seat belts save lives- they weren't hurt...
Old saying bout: Every one has an opinion, my stinks, I had chillie with beens...

Big difference in fuel between burns of 2years, 5 years, 10 years etc.

Landscape back then was not as fuel rich, both naturally and man managed

The eastern states were running short of wood by the end of the Civil War, that is when most trains began running on coal. By the time the trains got this far west, Abilene 1881, the coal industry supplied most of the fuel. The Thurber coal mines were developed mostly for the railroad industry. The small towns, they were more for water stops than wood, the coal tenders on the train supplied most of the fuel. The Fireman would "jerk" out the water tanks spigot to fill the locomotive and tender tanks. Creating the term "jerkwater" towns. Some survived, some slowly became ghost towns.

My Great Grandfather worked in the mines at Thurber, my Great Grandmother is buried in the little cemetery on top of the hill just east of there. I think they call it Steam Shovel Mountain.

According to the census data in 1800 there were only 5.3 million people in the US total. Im sure we made much more inefficient use of timber as fuel, but I cant help but think that more trees were dozed in central texas last week to build subdivisions than they cut down in 1800 etc.