MARKETABLE TIMBER. 557 



possess a thorough knowledge of the special requirements of 

 industries using wood, which is too much to expect from him. 

 To a certain extent, however, this knowledge is indispen- 

 sable, especially as regards those industries which obtain 

 their wood directly from the forest, and require it in large 

 quantities. 



It is true that iron competes more and more with wood for 

 certain purposes as for shipbuilding, agricultural implements, 

 water-pipes, telegraph-posts and railway-sleepers, where it has 

 been substituted largely for wood; in mines, iron rails and 

 props are used ; in the construction of large bridges, woodwork 

 is entirely dispensed with, and iron instead of wooden pillars 

 are used where vertical support is required to a building. 

 Even in numerous small articles iron has been substituted for 

 wood. Yet with the constant increase in human require- 

 ments, hundreds of new uses for wood are found, and there- 

 fore the demands for high-class timber increase constantly 

 whilst the area of the forests decreases, so that the supply of 

 this valuable material tends to diminish.* 



The timber required for various industrial purposes does 

 not in many cases pass directly from the woodman to the 

 artisan, but generally through the intervention of a middle- 

 man, the timber-merchant, who converts rough timber into 

 pieces of dimensions suitable for the requirements of the 

 various industries. In this intermediate state it is termed 

 converted or marketable timber. 



Timber may be classified according to its form, adaptability, 

 and mode of conversion, and this classification naturally pre- 

 cedes the account of the different wood-industries. Thus, logs 

 may be distinguished from sawn, or cloven timber. 



2. 



Logs are pieces of timber which retain the full thickness of 

 the stem, but may be more or less shortened. They are 



* [A paper was written in the " Revue des Kaux et Forets," December, 1894, 

 showing that in Britain, whilst the production of iron is as <jreat as in all the 

 rest of Europe, yet the imports of timber have risen, between ISiio and 1890, by 

 168 per cent. As regards the timber-supply from forests in the United States, 

 Kc-ll< )<_'<_'. "The Drain upon the Forests," U.S. Dep. of Agri., Novem- 

 ber 30, 1 ( J07, says that it is probably three times the annual increment. Tr.] 



