WHERE WE STAND. igi: 
In the mill logs lose from 30 to in some cases as much as 70 per 
cent of the volume of timber they contain. Two-thirds of this, under 
present conditions, is an unavoidable waste. One-third can prac- 
tically and profitably be avoided. In the manufacture of lumber, 
which forms over nine-tenths of the total mill product, the mer- 
chantable output is about two-thirds the contents of the log, not 
including the bark. For the entire lumber cut of the United States 
under present practice the saw kerf forms on the average 13 per cent 
of the total volume of the log, edgings and trimmings 9 per cent, 
and slabs 9 per cent. Cutting to standard lengths and widths, care- 
lessness in manufacture, and accidents cause a loss of 5 per cent. 
The waste in seasoning, in the factory, and in the use of the final 
product is far more difficult to estimate closely. In the building 
trades the waste in seasoning from staining, warping, and checking, 
and the loss in fitting material to final forms are not less than 15 per 
cent. The waste in cutting stock to required sizes and in eliminating 
defects is 20 per cent in box factories and 25 per cent in furniture 
factories. 
In the aggregate great damage is done each year to standing and 
cut timber by injurious forest insects. Much of this damage can be 
prevented at small expense. The application, practically without 
cost, of simple preventive measures against injurious forest insects 
and insects which attack forest products would greatly reduce the 
unnecessary losses which they occasion. The protection of the forest 
from insect depredations, both by preventive measures such as con- 
servative logging and by remedial measures when necessary, is no 
less a part of practical forestry than is the protection of the forest 
from fire. The damage by insect attack to timber standing and cut 
is not so generally apparent nor so generally understood as the dam- 
age to the forest by fire. But the injury done is both great and con- 
stant. Unless forest owners take vigorous steps against it wherever 
it threatens still larger losses will inevitably ensue. 
Great causes of waste, vast in their effect upon our forests, are the 
general failure to realize that the cost of growing timber as well as 
logging and manufacture must be reckoned in its value; and tax 
laws which force men to realize immediately on their holdings and 
so lead to unprofitable and wasteful logging, and which compel the 
abandonment of cut-over lands for taxes. 
WHERE WE STAND. 
We take from our forests each year, not counting the loss by fire, three times 
their yearly growth. We take 386 cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet 
grown; we take 230 cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 cubic feet 
and France 25 cubic feet. 
heirs} : 
