Lumbering

“ Lumbering the Forester should know more than a little about, as how to organize lumber operations, the equipment and management of logging and milling in various forest regions, the manufacture, seasoning, and grading of the rough and finished lumber, cost keeping in a lumber business, methods of sale, market requirements at home and abroad, prices, the relation of the lumber tariff to forestry, lumber associations, timber bonds, and insurance. ”

“ Besides insuring a future supply of timber, conservative lumbering, or lumbering on forestry principles, also tends to preserve the forest floor and the young trees growing on it, and to prevent injury to the remaining trees through fire, insects and disease. It provides for a working plan by which the kind, number and location of the trees to be cut are specified, the height of the stumps is stipulated and the utilization of the wood and by-products is regulated. ”

“ As might be expected the chief industries as yet developed are lumbering and fishing. There are magnificent forests of fir, spruce, cedar, and hemlock, in all directions, while in and around Astoria there are six immense establishments for transforming the timber into merchantable lumber. ”

“ A friend deeply engaged in lumbering gives me a hint, which I think some owners of stony farms will find useful. He is obliged to run his logs down shallow, stony creeks, from the bottom of which large rocks often protrude, arresting the downward progress of his lumber. ”

“ Among these conditions in America are the highly developed and specialized methods and machinery of lumbering, the greater facilities for transportation and consequent greater mobility of the lumber trade, the vast number of small holdings of forest land, and the enormous supply of low-grade wood in the timbered regions. High taxes on forest properties, cut-over as well as virgin, notably in the north-western pineries, and the firmly established habits of lumbermen, are factors of great importance. ”

“ Conditions imposed in France and Germany, where the population is so dense that more conservative systems of lumbering are generally practiced, were not always applicable in this country. Furthermore, our lumbermen have known little about scientific forestry. ”

“ Lumbermen who own forests from which they desire to harvest a timber crop should first of all survey the woods, or have some experienced forester do this work, to decide on what trees should be cut and the best methods of logging to follow. The trees to be cut should be selected carefully and marked. The owner should determine how best to protect the young and standing timber during lumbering. He should decide on what plantings he will make to replace the trees that are cut. He should survey and estimate the future yield of the forest. ”

“ By wasteful lumbering is meant that the forest is cut with no regard for the future and with considerable waste in the utilization of the product. Conservative lumbering, which is the term used by foresters to designate the opposite of wasteful lumbering, will be described more fully later in this study.
Protection from fire is no less important than protection from wasteful lumbering. Forest fires are very common in this country and cause incalculable destruction to life and property; see Fig. ”

“ Extensive lumbering has removed the greater part of the large growth spruce and balsam timber, which forms the great bulk of the forests of this region, leaving areas of small trees, which, in the older clearings, have grown thickly, and to an average height of ten feet. These are interspersed with areas of more or less open, large timber, and others where the second growth has reached little more than the proportions of somewhat scattered shrubbery. ”

“ Spruce and pine are the only trees cut. The work had been executed, at least up to the year 1902, with great satisfaction to the owners and the lumbering contractors, as well as to the decided benefit of the forest. The lumbering is regulated by the following rules, and competent inspectors are employed to see that they are rightly carried out: (1) No trees shall be cut which are not marked. (2) All trees marked shall be cut. (3) No trees shall be left lodged in the woods, and none shall be overlooked by the skidders or haulers. (4) All merchantable logs which are as large as 6 in. ”

“ Such is the lumber business, which depends on many accidents, as the early freezing of the rivers, that the teams may get up in season, a sufficient freshet in the spring, to fetch the logs down, and many others. [4] I quote Michaux on Lumbering on the Kennebec, then the source of the best white pine lumber carried to England. “The persons engaged in this branch of industry are generally emigrants from New Hampshire.... ”

“ The difference between destructive lumbering and conservative lumbering is that the former cuts one crop regardless of the future; while the latter plans to cut crop after crop indefinitely. In other words, in conservative lumbering, the trees to be cut are not selected solely with reference to their immediate market value. Not one crop, but many, is the forester's motto. ”

“ Educating the lumbering industry away from extravagant practices is one of the important activities of the modern forestry experts. Operators who manufacture handles, spokes, chairs, furniture, toys and agricultural implements could, by scientific methods of wood using, produce just as good products by using 10 to 50 per cent. of the tree as they do by using all of it. The furniture industry not infrequently wastes from 40 to 60 per cent. of the raw lumber which it buys. Much of this waste could be saved by cutting the small sizes of material directly from the log instead of from lumber. ”

“ The early lumbermen often made mistakes in estimating the timber yields of the forests. They also neglected to provide for the future production of the woodlands after the virgin timber was removed. Those who followed in their steps have learned by these errors what mistakes to avoid. Our lumbermen lead the world in skill and ingenuity. They have worked out most efficient methods of felling and logging the trees. Many foreign countries have long practiced forestry and lumbering, yet their lumbermen cannot compete with the Americans when it comes to a matter of ingenuity in the woods. ”

“ No spruce shall be used for bridges, corduroy, skids, slides, or for any purpose except building camps, dams or booms, unless it is absolutely necessary on account of lack of other timber. (7) All merchantable spruce used for skidways must be cut into logs and hauled out. (8) Contractors must not do any unnecessary damage to young growth in lumbering; and if any is done, they must discharge the men who did it.
These two instances of forestry have been most useful and effective among lumbermen and other owners of forest land in the north-east. ”

“ In the meanwhile its value has increased anywhere from ten to fifty fold, according to locality.3 Some large corporations, however, like the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Kirby Lumber Company, of Texas, and the International Paper Company, have entered upon a policy of conservative lumbering.
Of the actual practices which distinguish destructive lumbering, a few may be cited. Stumps are cut too high and tops too low. Good lumber is wasted on lumber roads and bridges, Fig. ”

“ Logs belonging to various individuals and firms in the lumber industry of the North Western United States are identified and separated in a striking fashion. To illustrate this it will be necessary to outline briefly the routine of work connected with the great lumbering industry of the regions mentioned. Logging camps are established in the heart of a forest. ”

“ In lumbering the principal difficulty always is transportation. At times in the winter the roads are flooded and frozen for the readier transportation of logs. In connection with lumbering arises the national problem of how to conserve the forests. ”

“ He must be skillful enough as a surveyor to always know which description of land he is on, and where he is on that description. He must be a good judge of timber, able to discern the difference between a sound tree and a defective one, as well as to estimate closely the quantity and quality of lumber, reckoned in feet, board measure, each tree will likely produce when sawed at the mill. ”

“ The Lumber Industry. Measured by the number of persons employed, lumbering is the country's largest manufacturing industry. In its 48,000 saw mills it employs more than 600,000 men. Its investment in these plants is over $1,000,000,000, and the investment in standing timber is $1,500,000,000 more. This industry furnishes [xv] the railroads a traffic income of over $200,000,000 annually. If we include in these statistics also the derived wood products, we find that over 1,000,000 wage earners are employed, and that the products and derived products are valued at over $2,000,000,000 annually. ”

“ 'I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full hour earlier in the mornings.'
And he moved off at his lumbering trot and made for the quarry. ”

“ And as the long, slow years go by, perchance that stately tree will die; there’s death for all, it seems, and men, to earn the needed plunk, will separate its mighty trunk, and fashion boards and beams.
And one who plans to build a shack, will to the lumber dealer track, and purchase beam and board; and carpenters will straightway go, and build as fine a bungalow as mister can afford. The walls and roof of my good tree, will shelter human grief and glee, for, maybe, untold years ”

“ The wood of the Big Tree is red and soft, coarse, light, and weak—unfit for must lumber uses. It ought, by all ordinary standards, to be counted scarcely worth the cutting; but the vast quantity yielded by a single tree pays the lumberman huge profits, though he wastes thousands of feet by blasting the mighty shaft into chunks manageable in the sawmill. Shingles, shakes, and fencing consume more of the lumber than general construction—ignoble uses for this noblest of all trees. ”

“ I recommend the brethren in this Valley to erect saw-mills and prepare to build with lumber. They are the cheapest and best houses I can think of, under your circumstances. I do not wish the brethren to cut all the timber to put it into log-houses. Erect saw-mills and make lumber, which will be far better than building log-houses. We have no timber to waste. We should save our timber, and make buildings that will look better than log-houses, and at the same time be easier and quicker built. ”

“ The aim of the ordinary lumberman is to fell the trees and reduce them to lumber with the least labor possible. He does not exercise special care as to how the tree is cut down. He pays little attention to the protection of young trees and new growth. He cuts the tree to fall in the direction that best serves his purpose, no matter whether this means that the forest giant will crush and seriously cripple many young trees. He wastes large parts of the trunk in cutting. ”

“ But when the hogs are feeling gay, and everything serene, and all the oats and corn and hay present a healthy green, he hitches up old Kate and Dick and journeys off to town, and then comes homeward pretty quick, with lumber loaded down. And when I see the wagons drill along the country road, each one a-creaking, loud and shrill, beneath its lumber load, I know the country’s on the boom, and things will hum once more; and any man who talks of gloom is just a misfit bore. ”

“ It seems dreadful to cut down trees which have been growing so long, yet occasionally one is made into lumber. After standing for a thousand years or more in the forest, it must seem strange to be cut into sections, loaded on flat cars, and started on a journey to some distant place to be made into ship masts or furniture or some other thing of which the tree never dreamed when it stood in its home on the slope of the Sierras. ”

“ The farmer who appreciates the importance of caring for his home forests is always interested in knowing how much timber will grow on an acre during a period of twelve months. The Government reports that where the farm woodlots are fully stocked with trees and well-cared for, an acre of hardwoods will produce from one-half to one cord of wood—a cord of wood is equal to about 500 board feet of lumber. A pine forest will produce from one to two cords of wood an acre. The growth is greater in the warmer southern climate than it is in the North where the growing season is much shorter. ”

“ When the lumberman looks at these beautiful forests, he sees only many logs containing many thousand feet of lumber, which he must get out the easiest and cheapest way. He only chooses the finest and largest trunks, and there is great waste in cutting these. The men begin to saw the tree some eight or ten feet from the ground, and soon it trembles and falls with a mighty crash, often snapping off other trees in its way to the ground. After all the selected trees have fallen, fires are started to burn off the branches and underbrush so that the men can work easier. ”

“ Thus one source of profit, and that a very great one to the farming settler, has been destroyed, and the enterprising timber-merchant has established at convenient distances several saw-mills, where his lumber is converted into plank and boards for the lower markets, and where he is at all times ready to saw whatever timber the farmer has left into boards and planks for him, receiving so many feet of timber, and giving so many feet of lumber, as sawed timber is called, taking care of himself, of course, in the exchange. ”

“ The side which furnishes timber rises in terraces of gigantic proportions, forming a succession of abrupt precipices and shelving table-land. There are three of these giant mountain steps, each of which produces lumber which challenges the admiration and enterprise of the logmen. The ascent to these Alpine groves is too abrupt to allow the team to ascend in harness; we therefore unyoke and drive the oxen up winding pathways. The yokes and chains are carried up by the workmen, and also the bob-sled in pieces, after taking it apart. ”