THE NEED OF SECURING COST DATA IN 

 LOGGING OPERATIONS. 



By A LOGGING ENGINEER 



WHILE TALKING with a prominent timberman some time ago on 

 the subject of getting more accurate and detailed cost data for our 

 logging operations, he made the statement that "the argument was 

 sound as far as it went, but to get any practical advantage out of 

 such figures you must have men trained to use them. Unless you had 

 such men, men who thoroughly understood the woods end of the business, 

 who could make intelligent use of such cost statements, it would not be 

 worth the trouble and expense to change present accounting methods." 

 My answer was that the paramount reason back of our present course of 

 training for logging engineers was to give them the very best possible 

 foundation for just such work as we were discussing; that the idea so pre- 

 valent among loggers and timbermen at present that a logging engineer 

 was nothing more or less than a civil engineer trained to woods work, was 

 wrong, and that unless we were able to change that idea it would not only 

 tend to keep the logging engineer in a rut that limits his ambition and 

 usefulness, but would be a real loss to the logging industry in not making 

 the most intelligent use of the men specially trained to put their business 

 on a more efficient basis. 



It is a fact that the present condition of the logging engineer is not 

 often one to be envied. He is breaking into a business that has the most 

 deep-rooted antipathy to theorists or to anyone suspected of harboring a 

 theory. The young logging engineer does not start out with a number of 

 more or less practical theories as to the best means of increasing the effi- 

 ciency of the logging business. His education, like that of any other pro- 

 fessional man, is only just begun when he leaves school. The college train- 

 ing is, as a matter of fact, only a base on which he can build a thorough 

 knowledge of the logging business. It takes a great deal of practical 

 experience to make a good logger. He must not only know how to log, 

 but he must know how to handle men and to be able to meet emergencies 

 in a manner that will hold the respect of his men. Comparatively few 

 men are fitted to make a real success of this work. One manager told me 

 that in thirty years' experience he had kept a record of the young fellows 

 who came to his company to "learn the business." Just one man in six- 

 teen had made good. 



So, in the past ten years, which practically covers the time the logging 

 engineer has been endeavoring to make a place for himself, there has 

 been a great deal of adjustment the industry making an effort to place 

 the logging engineer and the logging engineer trying to find his place in 

 the industry. The result has not been altogether satisfactory, the engineer 

 ieeling in many instances that his talents are being largely wasted and 

 the companies going on the theory that they are taking part in an ex- 

 periment and do not wish to snend any more money on experiments than 

 is absolutely necessary. And it is very largely a situation where the en- 

 gineer must show his own value if he is to advance his profession. 



The first thing he must work for, so that he may be able to make a 

 definite showing, is a uniform system of accounting. This must be carried 

 into detail, for it is only by finding exactly where the leaks are that he can 

 show where methods can be improved. If he is not able to show the exact 

 saving to be effected by such improvements it will be hard to induce opera- 

 tors to try them out. If he has not accurate cost figures on the old methods 

 he will have no solid argument on which to base recommendations. 



