THE marketing of farm timber presents some of the same 

 difficulties, but in an aggravated form, that the farmer 

 meets in selling other crops. He finds it hard to get 

 enough for his timber. Most farmers now sell their saw tim- 

 ber on the stump to a millman, such sales ordinarily being 

 made for a lump sum. The millman, experienced in estimat- 

 ing, goes through the woods and sizes up the quantity and 

 value of the timber he wants. The owner, being a farmer and 

 not a lumberman, seldom knows anything about estimating 

 timber and has only the vaguest idea of what it ought to bring. 

 The consequence of this condition is that the farmer often re- 

 ceives only a small fraction of the actual market value of his 

 stumpage. 



Astonishing examples of what a farmer may thus throw 

 away are often encountered by foresters, continues the ar- 

 ticle. For instance, a Massachusetts farmer sold a million 

 feet of timber to a portable sawmill man for $1,200, and 

 thought he had obtained a good price. His neighbor, how- 

 ever, who knew something about timber, got $7,000 for the 

 same quantity of white pine from the very same portable mill- 

 man. The first farmer, on account of his ignorance, prac- 

 tically presented the millman with $5,800; the second owner 

 was wise enough to learn before he attempted to sell his tim- 

 ber how much he had and what it ought to bring him in money. 

 The productive capacity of the 200 million acres of farm 

 lands throughout the country which either have or should 

 have timber growing on them is enormous, says the article. 

 This area is larger than all the national forests put together, 

 and with an annual growth of 200 board feet per acre of saw 

 timber a moderate allowance under the practice of forestry 

 it would produce annually forever about 40 billion feet, or 

 the equivalent of the entire lumber cut of the country, in ad- 

 dition to not less than 120 million cords of firewood. 



These figures probably never will be realized, for the rea- 



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