448 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



XXXIV. Manufacturing Timber. By John MTherson, 

 Manufacturing Forester, Novar. 



To help to make the Transactions of the Royal Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society the medium of exchanging views and of 

 gaining information helpful to its members, I venture to occupy 

 a paragraph or two in the current year's issue on the subject of 

 Manufacturing Timber. 



Timber in the remote portions of the Highland counties has 

 to submit to very keen competition from foreign supplies landed 

 near the places of consumption ; and, unless the strictest economy 

 is practised in the transport and manufacture of home-grown 

 goods, there is a very narrow margin of pro6t left for the owner. 

 Hence the great necessity of cheapening the various operations to 

 be undertaken in marketing the goods. First of all, then, the 

 question of transport from the woods to the saw-mills, and thence 

 to the i*ailway station or nearest seaport, has to be considered ; 

 and at the present high price of manual and horse labour one has 

 to adopt cheap methods of transport if a revenue is to be obtained 

 from the woods on an estate. Here traction-engine traffic has been 

 the method usually adopted, where the position of the woods and 

 the state of the roads made it at all practicable. By means of a 

 traction engine and good waggons, a forester can, on a small 

 schooner's cargo — of, say, 1800 or 2000 sleepers — even with a 

 distance of five or six miles' carriage, effect a saving of some £16 

 as compared with the cost of horse-labour. The wages of a staff 

 sufficient to work the traction engine and to load and discharge 

 the waggons, would be 16s. 2d. per day; coal, oil, etc., would cost 

 6s.; upkeep of traction and waggons, say 5s.; amounting in all 

 to 27s. 2d. per day. At this cost 500 sleepers can be carried the 

 above distance in one day ; whereas it would be necessary to 

 employ 16 horses and carts at 7s. per day, which would amount 

 to £5, 12s., to do the same amount of work. The above example 

 applies to manufactured goods only ; but by using the traction 

 engine during the summer season in the woods, an equal or 

 even a greater saving can be effected in the transport of round 

 timber. 



In the wet season, the engine is again very profitably employed 

 in sawing up the timber. The cheapest and best class of benches 

 for round wood will be found to be home-made wooden benches, 



