PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 311 
on sales, all of which must be deducted from the small margin of one dollar per 
thousand feet, the difference between the selling price of lumber and cost of manu- 
facture. 
San Francisco, Columbia River points, and Puget Sound operators are 
striving to undersell each other, and every mill in the various localities is in strong 
competition. This is all wrong. The output should be greatly reduced and a 
severe economy im clearing and manufacturing the product be adopted, with a 
view to the perpetuation of the lumbering industries. 
The government authorities, whose estimates are surprisingly inaccurate and 
overdrawn as to the amount of standing timber, only allow fifty years for the 
Pacific forests to become exhausted. If we recognize this to be correct, the State 
and nation will be the great losers, and should take legal steps to prevent further 
vandalism, and compel a reasonable method of lumbering as well as to check the 
annual burnings. 
LUMBERING ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
We present three pictures which vividly represent the grossly wasteful 
methods of Pacifie Coast lumbermen. In one view is a giant tree which 
is being felled by the usual mode, the choppers standing upon spring boards, 
which are fitted into notches cut with the axe into the tree several feet above the 
ground. The waste in these stumps is enormous where the trees are of such giant 
size as those of Puget Sound, the Columbia, and in California. In the tree shown 
in our illustration there are 7,775 feet b. m., which is a total loss. As this practice 
is universal in Oregon and Washington, it 1s seen that a serious loss is incurred 
upon every section of land. 
Since the loggers are paid by the day, they will chop where it is easiest cut- 
ting, and as the mills receive their remuneration by lumber measure, they bear 
no loss. The owner of the land does not complain, because there is so large a 
quantity of timber on the ground and it has cost him so small a sum. 
In Pennsylvania and other locations it was a former practice to cut trees in 
winter, when snow was several feet deep, thus leaving high stumps. They are 
now using this stumpage, sawing it close to the ground, although several years 
have elapsed since the trees were removed. 
Cordwood for fuel in Seattle is six dollars per cord, while but fifteen miles 
away is a mill where for almost half a century there has been enough wood burned 
in the fire that is never quenched to supply a large city with fuel. 
Another view is of a fallen forest. The trees have all been felled, the young 
undergrowths entirely destroyed, and after the choicest logs have been removed, 
the remainder will be burned to clear the land. 
This terrific waste, added to the forest fires which prevail every summer, will 
very soon make barren this once wonderful wealth of forest. 
Lumbermen fear these forest fires, and anticipate serious losses at any time 
when some miscreant may apply the torch, hence all are using their utmost 
exertions to market the timber as quickly as possible, without regard to economy 
of the product. 
