PART II. MANUFACTURE OF WOOD PRODUCTS. 



CHAPTER IV. FOUNDATIONS OF MANUFACTURE. 



PARAGRAPH XIV. 

 THE AMERICAN FORESTER AS A LUMBERMAN. 



In the Old Country, a large portion of the products grown in the forest go to the holders of prescriptive 

 rights (easements). The balance is sold either under private contract or at public auction or under 

 sealed bids. 



In France, standing stumpage is sold, while in Germany the trees are dissected, before the sales at the 

 owner's expense, into the assortments required by the local manufacturing trades. 



Usually, in the Old Country, the raw products of the forest are not refined by the forest owner. The 

 forest industries are in the hands of parties who do not own or control an acre of woodland. 



In Canada, timber leases or timber "limits" are sold at public auction by the various provincial and 

 by the Dominion Government. The purchaser pays, aside from the auction price, an annual rental (so-called 

 ground rent) and, further, for every 1,000 feet b. m. cut, a specified royalty. Neither ground rent nor 

 royalty is object of the auction sale. 



On the forest reserves of the United States auction sales are meant to form the main method of disposal 

 of forest products, exceptions being made only in the interest of local residents. 



The private owner of woodlands in the United States, and his forester, is and will be compelled to 

 be a manufacturer for many a year to come. 



The conditions necessitating this course are: — 



(a) The forests yielding our lumber are situated so far from the market that the transformation of 

 their bulky and cheap raw material -the logs ^ prior to shipment into a merchandise of condensed 

 value and of light weight becomes unavoidable. Lumber weighs, per 1,000 feet b. m., approxi- 

 mately one third of the logs producing it; 



(b) The stumpage market was, and still is to a certain extent, a buyer's market. In the United 

 States, 3,000,000 (Forest Service Circular No. 171) owners of woodland (prospective sellers) are 

 confronted by only 45,000 owners of sawmills (prospective buyers of stumpage). 



Under these conditions, the owner of timberlands becomes a manufacturer even if manufacture — a mere 

 means to convert stumpage into money -fails to yield a manufacturer's profit. 



The lumberman need not be a forester; but the forester should be a full-fledged and experienced 

 lumberman, superior in technical and scientific knowledge, and therefore in efficiency, to the lumberman 

 of the past. 



Woe to conservative forestry in the United States, if the forester, satisfied to give silvicultural advice, 

 fails to devote to lumbering and manufacture the larger part of his energies! 



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