Lumberyard

“ 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. ”

“ As the practice of lumbering has been carried on for a great number of years, all the forests in the vicinity of seaports have been denuded of their trees: and the lumberers have therefore to go far inland to obtain their supply of timber. This occasions one circle of operations to last an entire year, from summer to summer. As the lumberers who dwell in the interior frequently carry on some other occupation, perhaps an agricultural one, they cut down trees in the forest just as it suits their convenience, during the summer and autumn. ”

“ He has to feed his eighteen kids, he has to clothe his wife and auntie; he has to buy them pies and lids, and put new paint upon his shanty. And thus the forest giant falls, there’s none to shield it or deliver; now other men in overalls, will float it down some rushing river. And then through loud and busy mills the good old tree in fragments dashes, and makes its bow as doors and sills, as scantling, joists and window sashes. ”

“ Going through almost any one of the Eastern and Central States one will find thousands of old sheds and barns, travelling the road to ruin through age alone, though built of the best of pine and oak—materials of a quality which cannot be found in the best of modern homes in this year of 1909. For ten years past the price of lumber has been steadily climbing, and since 1900 the increase in the cost of building construction has brought lumber to a par with brick. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Are there not desolate countries enough in which to grow trees for the mere purposes of timber? Are there not soils and situations even in England, where none but timber-trees can grow? And is not the timber of many fruit-trees as useful as the timber of many of the lumber-trees which now encumber our soil? It is true, that, when wood constituted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-tree was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After the first rush to the placers, and when the building of permanent towns had fairly commenced, lumber fit for building purposes became in great demand, and in the forest near the sea coast, where transportation was readily obtainable, immense camps sprung up, and the scenes of the flush times in the mines were repeated. Lumber was worth hundreds of dollars per thousand feet, and money was gained and lost with a lavishness and rapidity almost incredible in these days. ”

“ The lumberman's eyes hardened.
“We are a very busy firm here,” he said with a certain deliberation; “we do not carry a big force of men in any one department, and each of those men has to fill his place and slop some over the sides. We do not pretend or attempt to teach here. If you want to be a lumberman, you must learn the lumber business more directly than through the windows of a bookkeeper's office. Go into the woods. Learn a few first principles. Find out the difference between Norway and white pine, anyway.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Hundreds of acres of these lumber forests are on every side, and indeed, a large proportion of the Dominion is covered with these mighty stretches of pine and spruce. There are other varieties such as maple, birch and poplar, but the spruce fir is the chief growth, as it covers all the land that is not cleared or occupied by water. We see piles of ready-cut timber, stacked for transport, or cars laden with it at every station. The rivers and lakes are full of floating timber, and abandoned rafts. ”

“ About five-sixths of the country is forest land, nearly all the property of the government. These 78,000 square miles of timber are largely inaccessible on account of the numerous waterfalls and rapids of the rivers; a railway line to the remote interior is of the utmost importance. The timber and lumber trade is slight, though the greenheart, a wood of great strength, weighing 75 pounds the cubic foot, is sought for its use in the construction of docks, heavy flooring, etc. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. This lumber aggregates something like a hundred and twenty million feet annually, and it goes to all the ports of the world. There is occasionally floated to the bar and thence to San Francisco, a log-boom chained in substantial fashion and containing several million feet of logs. ”

“ Our mill was surrounded with vast dumps of sawdust rising into huge hills and dunes. Our house was built on one of these dunes and commanded a view of a little creek, a stretch of railroad track through woods, and apparently endless piles of lumber, hundreds of thousands of saw logs and a long vista of sawdust. I can smell the odour of the lumber as I write, and even to this day, when Muriel and I come across lumber piles we put our noses in the air like dogs searching a scent, inhale big sniffs of the sweet, clean smell, turn and look at each other and smile foolishly. ”

“ Heaps of sawdust emit the odors of imprisoned flowers. Piles of logs lie on all sides stamped at the end U. S.—timber sold on the stump to any lumberman and scaled as inspected by the ranger and paid by the buyer. To be sure, the lumberman cannot have the lumber for nothing; and it was for nothing that the Forests were seized and cut under the old régime.
How was the spoliation effected? Two or three ways. The law of the public domain used to permit burn and windfall to be taken out free. Your lumberman, then, homesteaded 160 acres on a slope of forest affording good timber skids and chutes. ”

“ The lumber trade makes the first and greatest impression; landing among boards and sawdust, walking amid timber piles and over wooden sidewalks, with slabs, blocks and planks everywhere in endless profusion, the rushing waters filled with floating logs and sawdust, busy saws running, planing-machines screeching, the canals carrying lumber cargoes, the rivers lined with acres of board piles—an idea is got of what the lumber trade of the Ottawa valley is. ”

“ When we remember that every farm in the eastern United States, is made from reclaimed forest land and that for decades lumber was always within reach up the rivers, down which it was floated, it is not strange that reckless and extravagant methods of cutting and using it prevailed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All through the winter the lumberers work in the woods, from sunrise to sunset, making the forest resound with the strokes of their axes as they fell tree after tree in amazing quantities. Often they divide into bands of six or eight men, each company striving to outrival the other in the amount of work it gets through. ”

“ I mean--this is only my private opinion, you understand—that lumbering has been done so wastefully and badly that it has been necessary, merely as education, to go to the other extreme. We've insisted on chopping and piling the tops like cordwood, and cutting up the down trunks of trees, and generally 'parking' the forest simply to get the idea into people's heads. ”

“ If I were selling battle-axes, I’d see my own the best in town, as slick and clean and smooth as wax is, a thing of fair and wide renown.
One lumber man is always telling what kind of homes the folks should build, and he lives in a rocky dwelling, with bargain counter fixtures filled. And men who listen to his spieling remark, “Why don’t you build, yourself? Your home is punk, from floor to ceiling, from kitchen sink to pantry shelf.”
The lumber man, more than all others, should show his faith in what he sells, should demonstrate, to men and brothers, that his own home is wearing bells. ”

“ A timber cruiser would come into the community, prospecting for a lumber company, and examine the standing timber. After he reported back to the company, a lawyer was sent to sound out the landowners—to see if they were willing to sell their surface rights. When the legal matters were attended to, the lumber company sometimes bought as much as seventy thousand acres of forest. Woodsmen were brought in to work along with the mountain men. Portable sawmills were set up and busy hands—sawyers, choppers—set to work leveling the giant trees. ”

“ Logs that have lost their marks are called “scalawags,” and these are sold for the benefit of the log-driving company. Hollow-hearted pine logs are known by the curious term “concussy,” or “conquassy.” To show the immense change in the prices of lumber, the best pine lumber, which in 1870 was worth ten dollars a thousand feet, is now one hundred dollars a thousand.
Now and then a boy takes to the river so strongly that he makes his life work out of its teachings. The captains and engineers of most of our river and harbor steamers, 27 and of bigger craft, too, began life as riverbank boys. ”