Timber industry

“ The usual policy of disposing of Federal and State timber for practically nothing has acted powerfully, particularly in the West, to keep the selling price of stumpage far below its legitimate value. It is not surprising that it has always been impossible for the bulk of the owners of timber to have a broad view of the lumber industry and close acquaintance with the lumber market, for most of the cost of producing lumber lies in logging and manufacture, and the margin of profit has varied widely. ”

“ The local requirements for timber being large, the industry does not depend so much upon the export trade for development. Very little totara is found here, but the supply of red and white pine is more abundant. The oldest established firm of timber merchants in the Buller district is that of Messrs Marris Brothers, who have been on the West Coast for about 17 years. ”

“ A good supply of suitable timbers, the most valuable of which, possibly, is mangrove timber, locally known as ’bakau.’ Other suitable timbers are known, but as far as preliminary experiments show mangrove timber gives the best yield. At present this timber is in great demand as a fuel for steam plants, but with the extension of the local coal industry the timber may become cheaper. ”

“ The conservation of raw materials was essential to a well-organized industry, and there was danger that the pulpwood supply might not be protected. Growth of timber was slow, a cord an acre being the approximate annual rate for well worked forests. ”

“ The system of dealing with the lumber trust has been most liberal on the part of the government. A company wanting several million feet of timber makes a request to the district office to have the timber of a certain amount and on a certain tract offered for sale. The Forestry Service makes an estimate of the minimum value of the timber as it stands in the tree and the amount of timber requested within that tract is then offered for sale at a given time, the bids to be sent in by mail and accompanied by certified checks. ”

“ They also use considerable oak and compete with the furniture industry to secure what they need of this timber. Most of these plants are located in the Middle West but they draw their timber chiefly from the South. Hickory is a necessary wood to the vehicle industry for use in spokes and wheels. The factories exert every effort to secure adequate supplies of timber from the farm woodlands, sawmills and logging camps. The automobile industry now uses considerable hickory in the wheels and spokes of motor cars. ”

“ The production of timber to fill the increasing needs of the mining industry is another great function of the national forest reserves. The laws governing their management confer upon the Secretary of the Interior power to designate, appraise and sell timber within them. The exercise of this provision under conservative measures can alone continue to permit an adequate supply of timber to the miner and for the home uses of settlers within the arid region. ”

“ The geographical movement of the lumber industry is significant of a rapidly waning supply of merchantable timber. Fifty years ago, the northeastern states contributed more than one half the total lumber product of the country. ”

“ Nevertheless, especially in well-timbered regions, cutting is apt to be with but two considerations—the quickest clearing of land or the easiest immediate fulfillment of some need for tree products—and the passage of a few years brings realization that this early thoughtlessness must be paid for at a high price.
In the first place almost all timber of a commercial species has real and increasing value. If it is young, this value is increasing doubly because of growth. ”

“ Our thinnings and their income are like the first few apples or cherries, just enough to stall off some of the interest accumulations. The fruit grower realizes on the increasing bearing area of the trees; we realize on the quality growth of these pines and the climbing lumber values.
"Foraker's Folly is at the turning point. The value of the standing timber is commencing to overtake the interest which has been compounding away all these years, but neither the timber nor the investment is quite ripe. ”

“ No individual lives long enough to reap more 262 than one forest crop. Only corporations and States can be expected to have an interest long enough continued to justify the methods of conservative lumbering.
As a matter of fact, nearly one-half of the privately owned timber of the United States is held by 195 great holders, the principal ones being the Southern Pacific Company, the Weyerhauser Timber Company, and the Northern Pacific Railway Company, which together own nearly 11 per cent. ”

“ Your father is very particular about his lumbering, and he doesn’t do as many of the other timber owners do, sweep clean through a tract of land, and make it worthless as timber land for years to come. His having certain trees marked for cutting means that every year there will be a growth suitable to cut and market and thus he is assured of a steady income from his tracts.”
“Perhaps if you are not too busy every day, you could show us something of the lumbering operations. Although as you say, I come from a ‘lumber family,’ I don’t know a great deal about timber cutting. ”

“ But the demand for building material, fire-wood, and charcoal is so great that rapid inroads are being made upon the supply of timber. Unless a more thorough system of forestry is adopted the supply will some day be exhausted. ”

“ Next, it aims to utilize the ripe timber which can be marketed and to cut it in such a way as to insure the restocking of the land with young timber and the continuance of forest production. The price at which timber is sold represents, as required by statute, the appraised market value and a proper return to the public which owns it. ”

“ Forest experts say that the United States, which produces more than one-half of all the sawed timber in the world, should pay more attention to the export lumber business. Such trade must be built up on the basis of a permanent supply of timber. This means the practice of careful conservation and the replacement of forests that have been destroyed. We can not export timber from such meagre reserves as the pine forests of the South, which will not supply even the domestic needs of the region for much more than ten or fifteen years longer. ”

“ Taking the remaining stocks of the whole earth together, it may be said that a sufficient quantity of hardwoods is available, but the only countries which are able to supply coniferous timber for export on a considerable scale are Russia, Sweden, Norway, Austria and Canada. As these countries have practically to supply the rest of the world, and as the management of their forests is far from satisfactory, the question of supplying light pine and fir timber, which forms the very staff of life of the wood industries, must become a very serious matter before many years have passed. ”

“ It pays to advertise in the newspapers and secure as many competitive bids as possible for the timber on the stump. Generally, unless the prices offered for such timber are unusually high, the farmer will get greater returns by logging and sawing the timber and selling it in the form of lumber and other wood products. ”

“ In many cases, however, the farm value of the land is not at present sufficient to make it profitable to clear it, unless the timber cut will at least pay for the operation. There is considerable land upon which the second growth will become valuable timber within a few years. Such land should not be cleared until it is possible to utilize the timber. ”

“ Now, if the tree be in a worse soil and climate than those which are natural to it, this will be of some advantage, as the extra increase of {296} timber will still be of a quality not inferior to what would take place in its natural state; or, in other words, it will correspond with that degree of quality and quantity of timber, which the nature and species of the tree admit of being produced. If the tree be in its natural state, the annual increase of timber occasioned by pruning, must necessarily injure its quality in a degree corresponding with the increased quantity. ”

“ The United States alone uses at the present time about 40,000,000,000 feet of timber a year, besides 118,000,000 hewn ties, 15,000,000 staves, over 133,000,000 sets of headings, nearly 500,000,000 barrel hoops, 3,00,00 cords of native pulp wood, 165,000,000 cubic feet of mine timbers, 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation, and 90,000,000 cords of firewood. ”

“ Many owners would prefer to have their milling business continue indefinitely. If such have or can purchase virgin timber to carry them 50 years or more they may do well to grow a log supply to come into use at that time, even if they would not do so merely as a stumpage investment. ”

“ Forestry can hardly be made to pay on a small lot with hired labor or hired teams, and you must not pay much for your wood lot, else interest and taxes will eat up the returns.
To be of high quality, timber must be, to a considerable proportion of its height, free of limbs, which are the cause of knots; it must be tall; and it must not decrease rapidly in diameter from the butt to the top of the last log. In a dense stand of timber there is very great competition for sunlight among the individual trees, with the result that height growth is increased. ”

“ In the Rocky Mountain states and territories the major part of the small remaining supply of timber is in the National forests, and here their beneficial effect upon the lumber supply may be more plainly seen than on the Pacific Coast. The demand for timber from the forests throughout this region has come very generally from small sawmills which supply towns and ranches located off the railroads and from mines which use the timber for their own development. ”

“ So plentiful are they that, though fires and every sort of wastefulness have ravaged them, the Kauri Timber Company can put 40,000,000 feet of timber through their mills in a year, can find employment for two thousand men, and can look forward to doing so for another twenty years. ”

“ As a timber producing state becomes a timber importing state, (a condition existing in most of the eastern and middle states) we begin to pay a heavy toll in the loss of home industries dependent upon wood, and also in heavy freight charges on lumber that we must import from distant points to supply our needs. ”

“ It will be noted that the timber used in blocking, that is, filling up voids outside the main timbering, amounted to more than two-thirds of the total timber, and that the cost of labor in erecting the timbering exceeds the prime cost of the timber by about one-third. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It can be shown that even with present prices the growing of timber can be made to pay, provided it is carried on in a rational and economic manner. Improved silvicultural methods must be applied, so as to produce a better class of timber, and the forests must be managed according to well-arranged working plans, which provide for a regular and sustained out-turn of timber year by year, so as to develop a healthy and steady market for locally-grown material. ”

“ From the forester's standpoint, mature timber should be cut in order to give the small trees more light and a chance to grow and to make way for reproduction. From the standpoint of National economy, the mature timber on the forests should be utilized as needed for the development of the West, provided the local supply is not reduced below the point of safety. ”

“ The charge for all such timber is made on the basis of the current stumpage rates for timber of like quality and accessibility included in sales for all classes of material which have to be cut or destroyed and which are commonly salable on the Forest. ”

“ The quantity of measurable wood of the various timber trees which a certain extent of adapted ground will carry, when come to full maturity, or when they may be most profitably felled, and the quantity that may be thinned out during the maturing, with the time requisite to bring to value, with the relative selling price per foot, and also whether the greatest quantity of timber can be grown of one kind or mixed, are questions of more importance than might be judged, from the attention paid to the subject. ”

“ A lot of it can never be farmed or grazed, but in that lies our national future. Logs, lumber, forest products are the foundation of national life! Ties for railroads, and charcoal to make the iron that goes into equipment; timbers for the mines that yield coal for the locomotives and metals for every use. The shoes you wear were probably tanned with oak bark. Your necktie is silk, probably artificial silk, made from spruce pulp. ”

“ It has been estimated by good authority that, if we go on at the present rate, the supply of timber in the United States will, in less than twenty years, fall considerably short of our home necessities. ”

“ 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 ”