•172 SALE OF WOOD. 



producer can dispcuse with the middleman ; least of all forestry, 

 with its voluminous and heavy produce, its unequally distributed 

 producing localities, and its owners, who are in general unfitted 

 for trade (the State, municipalities, hospitals, Sec). As far as 

 concerns the local market, and in cases where the latter favours 

 a direct dealing between consumer and forest owner, the whole- 

 sale timber-merchant does not intervene. The petty dealer is, 

 however, a necessary and generally welcome member of the local 

 market. "Whenever large quantities of wood, and especially of 

 valuable timber, are in question, especially in forests with a small 

 local demand, the wood, for the most part, would rot in situ if 

 wholesale timber-merchants did not undertake its sale and dis- 

 tribution in distant districts which are densely populated and 

 poorly supplied with forests. Forest owners and wholesale 

 timber-merchants must therefore work hand-in-hand, and good 

 business relations between them are entirely in the interests of 

 forests, as long as only through the latter the distribution and 

 conversion of the raw material into marketable produce can be 

 effected. 



Under present trade conditions, so changed compared with 

 the past, it would be a serious injury to a forest owner were he 

 to refuse to acknowledge the necessity of the middleman ; he must, 

 on the contrary, constantly endeavour to improve his relations with 

 him. For it is the timber-trader who endeavours to extend the 

 present market and to open out fresh ones and improve the 

 means of transport ; who invests a large capital in buying timber 

 and establishing sawmills ; who follows with attention every 

 change, however small, in the price of wood ; who is constantly 

 posted-up in all industrial changes in the conditions of transport 

 or the incidence of taxes, and who is vigorously engaged in 

 pushing on the timber business. All this energy of the timber 

 merchant, even though it is in his own interest, should be 

 thankfully acknowledged by the forester. But if these desirable 

 relations in the interests of both parties, between the forest 

 owner and the timber-merchant, are to bear useful fruit, the 

 latter must also be more ready than is often the case to meet 

 the former half-way. 



