152 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



On small estates, or in outlying districts, it may be 

 more advantageous for the owner to sell the timber as it 

 is and be done with it. To employ hands specially for the 

 job often proves unsatisfactory, for they are either unskilled 

 in the work, or demand wages out of all proportion to the 

 value of the timber, and, before the work is over, the owner 

 begins to think it would have paid him better to have kept 

 the timber as it was. The comparative advantage of selling 

 timber standing or felled therefore depends a good deal upon 

 the necessity or otherwise for selling it. When ground must 

 be cleared, or money is wanted and sale is inevitable, the 

 chances are that the timber will sell better when cut than 

 standing, as the price offered for standing timber is usually 

 lower, to allow for risks in falling and for defects which 

 cannot be detected until the trees are down. But when the 

 timber is only offered in order to take advantage of a possible 

 rise in the market, or to clear off a certain quantity of mature 

 or superfluous stock, it is probably as well to offer it to some 

 respectable timber merchant as it stands, and to accept a fair 

 offer if such is forthcoming. 



SALES BY AUCTION. 



The method of selling timber by auction is probably the 

 most universal of any adopted at the present day, and is a 

 method which primarily commends itself to most people. 

 It is supposed to assure to the proprietor any pecuniary 

 benefit attaching to competition amongst buyers, and enables 

 him to obtain the highest possible market price for the 

 timber offered. It is a method which enables large quantities 

 of timber to be disposed of amongst a large number of buyers 

 in one day, and which by other methods would probably 

 involve a great expenditure of time and labour, unless the 

 timber were offered to one or two large buyers only. It is a 

 means of getting rid of timber or other produce for which 

 there is little demand, at some price or another, and when 

 a lot has to be cleared at any price, it saves the trouble 

 of hunting up unwilling customers, whose only motive of 

 purchasing is the chance of getting it cheap and practically 



