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Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



Most of it was cut-over land acquired 

 from the county tax sales and outright 

 purchases from lumber companies and 

 others after it had been logged off. 

 Swamp and swamp-border types pre- 

 dominate, running heavily to balsam 

 fir, spruce, northern white-cedar, and 

 aspen. To provide ample permanent 

 employment for his 50 workmen while 

 growing stock is being built up, stump- 

 age is purchased from other land- 

 owners. A special effort is made to 

 provide continuous yearlong employ- 

 ment by purchasing both upland and 

 lowland and by having a good distribu- 

 tion of types and size classes. Current 

 cutting is estimated to be about 25 

 percent less than the growth. 



The example of these men should 

 be of particular value to others inter- 

 ested in family or corporate holdings. 

 Both have found it necessary to do 

 their own logging. Both recognize that 

 permanent markets are essential for 

 continued operations. Both believe in 

 relatively intensive forestry. Both won- 

 der how they can maintain continuity 

 of management beyond their own life- 

 times. Inheritance taxes alone can de- 

 stroy each property by wiping out 

 working capital or forcing heavy cuts 

 that upset sustained-yield operations 

 and the year-round business that de- 

 pends thereon. Dispersal of the prop- 

 erty among heirs might prove equally 

 disastrous. Their practice of accumu- 

 lating capital in growing stock on the 

 ground makes both operations highly 

 vulnerable to inheritance taxes and 

 division. Both are examples of the 

 premise that foresters are exception- 

 ally well equipped to own and man- 

 age timberland. 



Foresters differ from most other 

 owners of forest lands in their attitude 

 toward capital investment. Foresters 

 recognize that their investment can 

 usually be built up most readily by cut- 

 ting less than current growth and by 

 saving the best-formed and most vigor- 

 ous trees as growing stock. In this way 

 yield per acre increases in volume and 

 value without increasing the outlay for 

 roads, protection, and maintenance. 



Other investors, not realizing the effi- 

 ciency of such a program, are more 

 likely to cut heavily and to invest their 

 extra earnings in additional land and 

 thus assume all the burdens that go 

 with care of the land. Only foresters, 

 in my opinion, seem to appreciate the 

 need to balance purchases of new land 

 against increased efforts on existing 

 holdings. 



Several other foresters are managing 

 their own timberlands. Areas of 1,000 

 to 10,000 acres are owned by Ned 

 Bryant, Harry Clark, John Kiernan, 

 Sterling Wagner, and several others. 

 The Wagner property is of special in- 

 terest in that it combines saw-timber, 

 fuel-wood, and mine-prop operations 

 with a resort business in the forest. 



OWNERSHIP of large forest proper- 

 ties in the North has changed appreci- 

 ably during the past two decades. Pulp 

 and paper companies are the strongest 

 and most stable owners. The large in- 

 vestments in pulp and paper mills can 

 be liquidated only over long periods 

 of time and make necessary a con- 

 tinuous supply of timber. Many of the 

 companies are enlarging their hold- 

 ings. Others are attempting to stimu- 

 late good forest practices on the part 

 of private owners who control land 

 tributary to their mills. 



BECAUSE FEW LUMBER COMPANIES 

 were responsible owners of forest land 

 in the past, few are important timber 

 owners today. Lumber companies face 

 several difficulties. They have last 

 call on the timber. Fuel wood, chemi- 

 cal wood, pulpwood, mine timbers, 

 posts, poles, ties, and many other prod- 

 ucts can all be cut from trees before 

 they reach saw-timber size. Though 

 the sawlogs bring a higher price than 

 the smaller material, many owners sell 

 when their timber first becomes mar- 

 ketable. Moreover, less than half the 

 merchantable material harvestable 

 throughout a rotation is likely to be of 

 sawlog size. Unless a lumber company 

 operates subsidiary plants to process 

 small material, as the Goodman Lum- 



