PHILANTHROPY OR EFFICIENCY 



643 



by much the same methods of winter cutting and spring 

 driving of the rivers as was made famous in Stewart 

 Edward White's stories of the old Michigan days. The 

 company itself operates a certain number of camps under 

 its direct management and control, but usually a con- 

 siderable quantity of the timber is "contracted". While 

 it was generally realized that the contract system re- 

 sulted in only the best timber being taken and the remain- 

 der being left in scattered bunches which would not per- 

 mit of a second cut except at prohibitive cost, it has re- 

 mained for the new type of forest engineer to demon- 

 strate the really awful and destructive waste therefrom. 

 It is the forest engineer who has now produced figures 

 to show that pre-planning and careful preliminary re- 

 connaissance and mapping, even at considerable expense, 

 will not only extend the life of the operation but also 

 bring logs to the mill at a less cost per cord. 



While old school logging bosses used to laugh at for- 

 estry ideas, it is now the forestry department, made up of 

 a personnel of forest engineers, which, for these pioneer- 

 ing companies above mentioned, becomes the planning 

 and control department for the woods operations. At 

 the beginning of the season the chief forester is in confer- 

 ence informed as to just how many cords of wood and of 

 what proportionate species will be required for the com- 

 ing year. With the aid of more complete maps than 

 were ever before thought necessary, some of them made 

 perhaps with the aid of aerial photography, the forestry 

 department selects the areas to be cut. Experienced en- 

 gineers are sent to blaze out the roads which will have 

 to be built, and locate the camp sites. Then when the 

 cutting begins a regular inspection is carried on to sec 

 that company camps and contractors alike abide by the 

 directions given. Progress reports, hitherto almost un- 



PULP MILL 

 CONTROL 



known in the logging industry, keep the mill manage- 

 ment informed as to the expectancy of raw material. 

 Meanwhile a separate branch of the forestry department 

 is carrying on special surveys for bridge or dam sites, 

 making time studies of towing operations to determine 

 fuel and labor costs per unit of production, or conducting 

 experiments with some new equipment. Cost systems 

 have been little applied to woods operations. Some of , 

 these foresters even hope to demonstrate that such study 

 will prove quite as valuable to a large scale logging oper- 

 ation as to a cash-register or automobile manufacturer. 



In all this fire protection will not be forgotten. The 

 closer touch between forester and woods operations alone 

 should make such protection more easy of attainment. 

 Nor will the operation of a nursery be made less valuable, 

 for the forestry department with its finger on the pulse 

 of the whole woods operation can better lay out areas to 

 be replanted. 



Economy in operation is true conservation. It is for 

 the forester as forest engineer to show real economies, 

 for then with faith in his practical abilities and through 

 the actual savings thus obtained, can be made those very 

 necessary experiments in scientific cutting for natural re- 

 production which may in time here in America, as well as 

 in Europe, prove the real basis of a perpetual timber sup- 

 ply. There lies the crux of the whole problem and the 

 justification of the forester as forest engineer. 



The new forestry and engineering department is cer- 

 tainly in a far better practical position for carrying on 

 experiments in selective or strip cutting, than as a sup- 

 plementary philanthropic hanger-on. And experimenta- 

 tion is what we need, for our Canadian and American 



(Cont'd on page 655) 



LOGGING AND 

 WOODS DEP'T 



FIRE 

 PROTECTION 



PLANNING 



NURSERVa 

 PLANTING 



WDOOS 

 INSPECTION 

 & CONTROL 



SPECIAL 

 SERVICE 



RECONNOISSANtf 

 & MAPPING 



SCIENTIFIC 

 CUT STUDIES 



INSPECTORS 



PROGRESS 

 REPORTS 



SPECIAL 

 SURVEYS 



EFFICIENCY 

 STUDIES 



SUGGESTION FOR ORGANIZATION OF INDUSTRIAL FORESTRY DEPARTMENT 



