8 WORKING PLAN FOR FOREST LANDS NEAR PINE BLUFF, ARK. 



East, while the lower grades find a read}' market in the Southwest. 

 There is every reason to believe that this demand will steadily increase. 



The average taxes amount to about $18 per $1,000 of valuation, or 

 1.8 per cent. ' As yet no assessment value has been placed on cut-over 

 lands, but it is expected that these will be assessed at $1 per acre. 

 This is much too high and plainly unfair, since they are hard to sell 

 at 50 cents per acre. Taxes on cut-over lands play a very important 

 part in conservative lumbering, and it is to be hoped that every effort 

 will be made to secure just and fair taxation. 



An excellent system of transportation is already in operation. It 

 consists of a main line of railroad with radiating branch lines. The 

 main line, of which 12 miles are already completed, runs from the 

 mill at Pine Bluff through the center of operations in the woods, and 

 is intended to serve eventually as a freight and passenger line con- 

 necting Pine Bluff with Sheridan and Benton. The " spurs," or 

 branch lines, are merely temporary, and are built in such a way that 

 after serving their purpose by transporting to the main line the tim- 

 ber from the area which they tap, the ties and rails may be taken up 

 and laid again through that next to be logged. 



In this way the logs are transported by rail direct to the mill. This 

 system has proved to be the best one under the local conditions. 



LUMBERING. 



The lumbering done upon the tract previous to its purchase by the 

 Sawyer & Austin Lumber Company was insignificant. Only over 

 very small areas in the hardwood bottom lands Cow Oak and White 

 Oak had been cut for staves, and on the pine lands little patches here 

 and there were thinned out long ago for the small mills. In the 

 spring of 1900 the company began lumbering about 10 miles from 

 Pine Bluff, and cuttings have since continued steadily. It is now 

 intended to carry on the lumbering both winter and summer until the 

 whole tract of 100,000 acres has been cut over. 



Following the recommendations of Mr. Griffith, of the Bureau of 

 Forestry, who made the preliminary examination of the tract, pine is 

 now being cut to a diameter limit of 18 inches on the stump. The 

 trees are cut at about 18 inches from the ground, and the last log-cut 

 is made well up in the crown, generally at a diameter of about 14 

 inches. As the hardwood trees growing in mixture with the pine are 

 of inferior quality, it is onl} T very rarely that one is felled. Lumber- 

 ing of the hardwoods on the bottom lands has not as yet been begun. 



The logs are either snaked or hauled to the railroad by horses, or 

 skidded to the tracks and loaded upon cars by a steam skidder, the 

 latter method having so far proved cheaper and fairly satisfactory. 

 (See PI. IX, fig. 2.) The company's mill at Pine Bluff is expected to 

 saw annually from 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 feet of lumber. 



