INTRODUCTION ix 



advantages. One of these is the great difference 

 in price between the timber in the round which 

 he sells and the sawn timber. Not unusually 

 the price of sawn timber is more than three 

 times per cubic foot the price of the tree from 

 which it has been cut. The important fact 

 which the timber-grower should always remember 

 is that his margin of profit is very small. The 

 feller, hauler, railway company, saw-mill, and 

 timber-merchant absorb so much of the money 

 which the ultimate customer pays, that a very 

 small residue is left for the grower of the timber. 

 The classification enforced by the railway com- 

 panies, their charges and their preferential treat- 

 ment of foreign timber, may possibly be justified 

 by cogent reasons, but it cannot be denied that 

 they produce a considerable diminution of the 

 price which a timber-grower might obtain under 

 more favourable conditions. There is hardly 

 any grower of a natural product who has so 

 small a proportion of the profit made by the 

 sale of the converted article as the grower of 

 timber in England. Better organisation among 

 timber-growers and better arrangements for 

 marketing their timber might prevent, or at 

 least lessen, these disadvantages. At the present 

 time they exist, and cannot be ignored in any 



