400 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Late last fall cutting operations were begun, but instead of putting in 

 a portable mill in the woods the owner hauled the logs those 6 miles 

 to a pony band sawmill in town — amid much raising of eyebrows and 

 shaking of heads, to be sure. 



He finds his costs per thousand mill scale by this procedure are- 

 Felling and log making $2-50 



Hauling to Salisbury (wagons loaded in woods) 7.o0 



Sawing and grading and sticking 6.00 



Total $10.00 



But every thousand board feet of lumber yields from one-half to 

 three-quarters of a cord of slab wood, which finds a ready market in 

 town at $10 per cord delivered, or $6 per cord at the mill with no ex- 

 pense for handling. After deducting the trifling cost of converting 

 slab wood into stove lengths, he can credit $1 per thousand against his 

 sawing bill, making the total costs $12; stumpage is figured at $12.50, 

 which is about $2.50 higher than the general price in this section ; and 

 the finished product sorted and graded is sold to his planing mill at an 

 average price of $30 per thousand. This makes a net profit of $5.50 

 per thousand on this operation. 



In addition to this, he has been able to supervise the sawing, getting 

 some graded stock whereas in the woods the sticks would have been 

 sawed through and through in one common grade. 



This took care of all the merchantable timber on the tract down to 

 a G-inch top, and in that respect the operation was not very dififerent 

 from similar operations the peninsula over. But there was still on 

 the tract trees too small to be merchantable, inferior hardwoods inter- 

 laced with a mass of tops and lops, such conditions as prevent another 

 stand of timber from getting established — a fire trap and a desolation 

 for years to come. 



It will be recalled that this land had a sale value for agricultural 

 crops of ST5 per acre, if cleared. It was essential then for the owner 

 to figure how to at least break even on the clearing up proposition. 

 This is the result : 



He put a crew, under a competent- foreman, in the woods immediately 

 after the felling crew, cutting out all tops down to an inch, in any length 

 they would m.ake, cutting down all the hardwoods not taken by the 

 felling crew and making them up in lengths convenient to handle. All 

 brush from these operations was stacked in great piles, as was most 



