ROUGH CONVEBSION. 



247 



the trees are examined as to their fissibility before being felled, 

 by trimming off a patch of their sapwood. Not every kind of 

 heart- shalce will render a tree unsuitable for timber, and even a 

 heart- shaken tree may be sawn into planks provided the shake 

 is in a line right through the core of the tree ; heart-shakes 

 also are often confined to the base of the tree, and may be dis- 

 posed of by sawing one or two short logs from it. 



Cup-shake and twisted fibre may however render a tree unfit 

 for timber. 



(b) Demands of the Market. 



The mode of conversion to be undertaken also depends on the 

 demands of the market. For wherever there is no demand for 

 any sort of converted timber, or for any timber at all, it is evident 

 that only firewood will be prepared. The demand is measured 

 by the price, and wherever any assortment of timber fetches a 

 higher price than firewood it is evident that conversion into 

 timber should result. The rule should therefore be to produce 

 as much good timber as can be profitably utilized, without 

 including the smaller sized material resulting from thinnings 

 with which the market is soon glutted. 



"Wherever there are forest rights to firewood, the outturn 

 in timber is limited by their demands, and frequently, if such 

 rights cannot be compensated in money, wood of the best 

 quality has to be sacrificed to meet these demands. 



On the average in the difterent German countries, the pro- 

 duction of timber is only really large in Saxony, and was as follows 

 in 1885 :— ' ^ 



These figures are not however all prepared on the same basis, 



