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CHAPTEE III. 



WOOD TRANSPORT BY LAND. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE largest forest areas are found generally in thinly-popu- 

 lated remote districts, and the forest-owner must, therefore, in 

 such cases, expect only a limited demand for the produce of 

 his forests unless he can improve the means of communication 

 between them and distant markets. The forest-owner often 

 undertakes the transport of his own wood, sometimes directly 

 to the timber-market, or to a place where existing means of 

 communication are good enough for no further trouble in this 

 respect on his part to be necessary. If, however, the trans- 

 port of the timber is undertaken by agency independent of 

 the forest-owner, the latter should endeavour to improve 

 the means of communication between his forests and the 

 markets, so that wood may be conveyed as cheaply as 

 possible. 



The great improvement during the present century in com- 

 munications, and especially by means of railroads, tends more 

 and more to reduce the cost of carriage, which is a vital ques- 

 tion in forestry. It is therefore necessary to connect the 

 forests with the general lines of land and water communica- 

 tion, in order to get full value for forest produce, and especi- 

 ally for the better classes of timber. Although the forest- 

 owner has to face greater difficulties in this respect than any 

 other large producer, yet recently nowhere has greater energy 

 been shown than in improving forest communications. 



Wood-transport, therefore, means the conveyance of the 

 wood to tho more or less remote markets or depots by moans 

 of mom or loss permanent routes. Transport is thus dis- 

 tinguished, by the gmalor distance over which it acts and 

 the mom permanent nature of the routes employed, from 

 clearance of the felling-area, although both these mcnsures 



