FORESTS AS OBJECTS OF INDUSTRY. 23 



this head, a sum of at least A'4, 000,000 is paid annually in 

 Germany. 



(3.) Forest Industries.— The labour which is required to 

 work up the raw material yielded by forests is of a much 

 greater extent than that employed in managing the forests 

 and in transport. There are the workmen employed in saw 

 mills, building, ship-building, carpentry, coach building, 

 engineering, turning, carving, paper pulp manufacture, match 

 making, the manufacture of cases and boxes round and 

 square from the largest packing case to the smallest toy box, 

 frames of sieves, drum and cask hoops, wood-wire for table 

 covers and blinds, pencils, wooden nails, instruments, tools, 

 plates, shovels, spoons, shoes, lasts, saddle-trees, brushes, 

 harrows, gun-stocks, toys of thousands of patterns and 

 endless other branches of industry, some of which can only 

 exist in and around extensive forests. The wages earned 

 under this head amount in Germany to something like 

 £30,000,000 a year, maintaining about 600,000 families, or 

 3,000,000 people. 



Taking now the three heads of labour together, it has been 

 estimated that something like 12 per cent, of the population 

 of Germany is employed in forest work, transport of forest 

 produce and the working up of the raw material yielded by 

 the forests. 



An important feature of the work connected with forests 

 and their produce is that a great part of it can be made to 

 lit in with the requirements of agriculture ; that is to say, it 

 can be done when field crops do not require attention. Hence 

 forest work offers an excellent opportunity to the rural 

 labourer or small farmer of earning some money when he 

 has nothing else to do, and when he would probably sit idle 

 if no forest work were obtainable. It would be a considerable 

 help to agriculture if work in fields and woods were done by 

 the same labourers, the former in spring, summer and 

 autumn, and the latter in winter. Such an arrangement 

 would considerably reduce the cost of production of field 



