172 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



common stock. The common lumber is now sawed into short pieces of 

 specified dimensions, thus enabling the knots to be gotten rid of. From two 

 carloads of common one car of clear can thus be obtained. The former, I am 

 informed by one of their officials, sells for about $100 per car, the latter for 

 about $1,000 per car; also some of the knotty lumber from which the clear is 

 cut can be used in the box factory, which they are now building in connection 

 with their planing mill. 



DISPOSAL OF THE BRUSH 



The long, dry summer and the well exposed situation of their lumber 

 yard make it unnecessary to have drying kilns. The lumber dries evenly 

 and rapidly in the stack, whence it goes directly to the planer. The Western 

 Pacific and the Nevada, California and Oregon Railroads have each a spur 

 into the lumber yard, making transportation easy to local and distant markets. 



Perhaps, to the nonconservative lumberman and to people unacquainted 

 with the danger from fire in slash, it may seem not only unnecessary, but 

 even an imposition upon a company to have to pile the brush so that it may 

 be burned ; but for safety to the forest and for the promotion of rapid restock- 

 ing after logging, the disposal of the brush by piling and burning is both an 

 economic, and in fact, the only business-like way to handle it, since there is 

 not yet any way to utilize it. The cost of the brush piling devolves, of course, 

 upon the operator, but at a small amount per thousand feet, amounting on 

 these two sales to between 15 and 20 cents. The cost of this brush piling, 

 however, is taken into account when reckonings by the forest officer are ma<le 

 for the cost of logging upon which the stumpage prices are recommended 

 before the sale is made; it, therefore, can not be called an extra expense }»ut 

 upon the operator, not an expense which has had no consideration. 



The burning of the brush has thus far been done by forest officers, although 

 the companies agreed in their contracts to furnish help when called for. The 

 brush burning does not consist merely of burning brush. If so, it would be 

 most quickly and most readily done in dry weather, but with every chance 

 for a forest fire, and also the actual destruction of a great deal of the repro- 

 duction as well as a great many trees. 



The fall of the year is the time aimed at in which to dispose of all the 

 brush from the sales. Speed is not an essential factor in this kind of work. 

 The fall rains or snows must have set in in order for the least damage to 

 result. Usually by that time (the middle or last of November), the forest 

 oIKicers can be shifted so as to take charge of the work instead of depending 

 ujum outside help. Ordinarily, when a light snow one and ime-half to two 

 inches deep has fallen, the time is ideal for burning. Naturally, the air is 

 cold and no fire can spread; no great amount of heat is conducted to the 

 seedlings, large reproduction and trees. The snow on the piles melts, runs 

 through the dry brush, and prevents the blaze from becoming so intense. The 

 brush from these two sales for the past season's cutting has already been 

 disi)osed of. The light snow that remained through the ten days of this work 



