THE NEW FORESTRY. 193 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

 CONVERSION OF TIMBER ON ESTATES. 



Sawn Timber. Transport of Timber. Creosoting. 

 SECTION I. SAWN TIMBER. 



A SUGGESTIVE feature in one branch of the timber trade in 

 Germany, that travellers notice, is that on the railway and 

 canal wharves, etc., the timber for transport anywhere is 

 generally in the sawn state, in the shape of boards, battens 

 and other scantlings, in net bulk, so to speak ; whereas in 

 this country it is almost always in the round or rough state 

 as it is felled in the wood, representing an enormously greater 

 expense in haulage as well as loss in other ways. And this 

 partly converted timber from the German forests represents 

 only a portion of the produce, much of it being worked up 

 in factories in or near the forests, all the small wood and 

 waste being left behind for firewood and other purposes. 

 On the Continent, however, the supply is regular, and employ- 

 ment for saw-mills, driven by steam or water, is constant. In 

 Britain that is not the case, even on the largest estates, and 

 saw-mills, except in a small way for estate purposes, are costly 

 to erect and maintain of a capacity to deal with all sizes of 

 timber, otherwise it would certainly pay the owners of timber, 

 when felled in considerable quantities, to partly convert their 

 timber at home before offering it to purchasers. The portable 

 saw-mill offers some facilities in that respect, whether hired or 

 kept on the estate, but travelling saw-mills are not as yet 

 common. The extensive windfalls of recent times in Scot- 

 land has, to some extent, brought them into use, but in 

 England they are not readily available. With a saw-mill 

 near to the timber, battens, boards for flooring and other pur- 

 poses, scantlings of various kinds, railway materials, fencing 

 rails and posts, pit-props, telegraph poles, etc., all of which 

 are now either imported or sawn up at local saw-mills, could 

 be easily manufactured and as readily sold. Railways and 

 waggon builders alone provide a very ready market for large 

 quantities of our best timber. For one oak waggon sole, 

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