A Decennial Recokd 91 



ordinary purpose. I recall the time out here on the Wisconsin river, 

 M^here I lived as a small boy, when 1x6x16 fencing had to be free of 

 knots. A farmer would not accept a fence board, a cork pine fence 

 board, that had a knot in it; })ridge plank had to be practically clear; 

 and so it was Avith all the lumber that was used at that time. You of 

 younger years who have probably had something to do with the wreck- 

 ing of old houses have learned that the "piece-stuff", so called among 

 lumbermen, used in those days was practically clear material. Now, 

 every luml)erman knows that when you can sell only clear lumber 

 there is a tremendous waste that must be left either at tlie sawmill or 

 in the forest. 



I want to say at the outset, without any thought of criticising 

 nature, that nature would have been a great conservator of forest 

 products if she had permitted trees to grow square rather than round, 

 because the fact that the log had to be square was one of the reasons 

 for great waste in those early days. There was no thought of making 

 ami;hing of slabs, and the slab burners of the country have been a 

 great enemy of conservation. I do not know, nor does anyone know, 

 how many billions, aye, countless billions, of good material have gone 

 up in the form of heat and smoke through the slab burner, a perfectly 

 innocent apparatus, so far as that is concerned. I attribute the loss, 

 not to the apparatus itself, but to the market conditions. That part 

 of the log was burned because there was no market for it, and the lum- 

 berman was compelled to make whatever tlie people would buy. 



Now, the waste has gone on not only in pine and softwoods but 

 in the hardwoods as well. I had some experience in the south as a 

 lumberman in the manufacture of hardwood, and I am going to give 

 you a brief review of what I saw there and of what is going on not 

 only now, but as far back as the nineties. Prior to the entry of the 

 sawmill in the southern forests, there had been a system of timber 

 destruction going on in the South, particularly of the very choicest 

 white oak, that I thought was a reflection upon this Government. 



Large crews of men in these southern forests were in tlie ])usiness 

 of making what is known as pipe staves. The staves were 60 inches 

 long and from 4 to 6 inches wide, and could be made only of the very 

 best quality of white oak that liad a perfectly straight grain. When- 

 ever they found a tree with a winding grain they had to leave it, be- 

 cause thev could not use a crooked stick. The system was this : Thev 



