202 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A Characteristic Sawmill Where a Great Variety of Wood Products are Made and 

 Nothing Is Allowed to go to Waste. 



IN the foreground, boards from select logs are piled together just as they come 



from the saw. 



of from 30,000 to 60,000 board feet per 

 day and the great majority wotild have 

 the smaller capacity or less. For ex- 

 ample, the largest mill in Bavaria and 

 probably one of the largest in Germany, 

 cuts about 16,000,000 feet a year, 

 which means a daily capacity of about 

 64,000 board feet when running two 

 hundred and fifty days a year. 



Practically every house and building 

 in Germany is largely constructed of 

 stone, brick, or concrete, so that con- 

 struction and building timbers are not 

 much in demand. The majority of the 

 product therefore goes into interior 

 trim, sash and door stock, flooring, box 

 boards, furniture, cooperage, fencing, 

 railway sleepers, and a great variety 

 of minor lines of utilization. For the 

 majority of these uses, therefore, they 

 demand well sawn stock. Consequent- 

 ly the gang saw is the rule, with a very 

 narrow kerf and the minimum amount 

 of wood going into sawdust. 



Wood is very expensive and labor 

 cheap in Germany, so that German 

 machines are built to save lumber and 

 power, whereas American machines are 

 built to save labor. Our machines are 



built to turn out enormous quantities 

 of product at our sawmills ; on the other 

 hand, their machines turn out quality of 

 product. German machines are fre- 

 quently constructed and fitted to serve 

 a variety of purposes whereas American 

 machinery is intended to turn out one 

 product and to do that quickly. Ger- 

 man machinery in turn ordinarily lasts 

 for a long time, whereas ours is not 

 expected to last more than fifteen to 

 twenty years or so. 



It is gratifying, however, to see the 

 amount of American machinery in use 

 in Europe. At the above mentioned 

 Bavarian mill, several of the pieces 

 were of American make. In fact, the 

 only band sawmill in the whole Black 

 Forest region and one of the very few 

 in Germany was fitted with machinery 

 made by an American manufacturer. 

 Another interesting fact in connection 

 with these small sawmills is the great 

 variety of products that are usually 

 turned out. Many of these are by- 

 products of the main output and would 

 frequently be sent to the "hog" or 

 burner in this country. 



Contrasted to our American condi- 



