18 MISC. PUBLICATION 87, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
trees from 12 to 15 inches on the stump, many others were 9 to 12 
inches, and a number of suppressed, or slow-growing trees with close 
rings of dense wood, were from 6 to 9 inches in diameter. The trees 
had grown to be 70 to 80 feet in height and of ideal form and size for 
poles. (Fig. 12.) 
Appreciating his trees as he did, he yet knew little about their 
money value, and when a buyer in the spring of 1927 offered $600 
for the trees found fit to be cut for poles, he was satisfied and ac- 
cepted the offer. Practically every tree cut two poles. The larger 
F-218925 
Figure 12.—The pine “ saplin thicket” of 2 acres which proved to be a $600 gold 
mine to Joe Miller. About one-half of the trees have been cut and the others 
will follow them to the pole yard to be treated and shipped perhaps 1,000 miles 
to some of the Northern States 
trees each yielded a class A pole worth on the stump from $3 to $5 
and a class C or D pole worth from $1 to $3. . 
Six hundred doilars was more money than either Joe Miller or his 
wife had seen at any one time in many years. As a matter of fact, 
however, Joe sold his timber for about one-half of its real value. 
A local timberman was heard questioning the purchaser when he 
had cut just about one-half of the trees, and the answer was also 
overheard: “ I’ve already made over and above what they cost me.” 
Instead of the $600 received for it, Joe Miller’s timber was actually 
worth on the stump from $1,000 to $1,200. 
Joe and Louisa Miller’s thicket of pines, a volunteer crop on the 
old abandoned potato patch which had grown up untended except 
for some degree of fire protection and with no expense for labor or 
fertilizer, had yielded a money income almost entirely net profit. 
The timber crop when sold brought them in an average yearly income 
of $5 an acre. Five years before the time of selling, the trees had 
little value. 
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1930 
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C, - - - - - - Price 5 cents 
