CONSERVATIVE LUMBERING. 39 



be slightly increased, but at an ultimate gain which would more than 

 justify the outlay. 



More serious in the eyes of owners are likely to be the objections 

 that there is a present market for practically all of the timber, which 

 if left will be exposed to loss by fire, wind, theft, and disease; that 

 money would be tied up in growing timber for a long term of } 7 ears; 

 that tramways would have to be provided for each cutting at great 

 expense; that meantime taxes would be eating up the profit. 



On the other hand, it is to be said: 



(1) That while small timber is salable, the profit on timber squaring 

 over 8 or 10 inches is so much greater that to cut it earlier involves a 

 wasteful loss. 



(2) That the price of high-grade lumber will probabty increase very 

 materially during the next fifteen or twent} r years. This is indicated 

 by the rapidly decreasing supply of pine timber in eastern North 

 America with an increasing demand; by the history of the price of 

 white pine; by the steady upward trend of southern pine during the 

 past decade; and by the rapid exhaustion of longleaf pine in Texas 

 now actually in progress. 



(3) That with agricultural and industrial development the land itself 

 is rising in value. 



(4) That large lumber companies, organized to do business for long 

 periods, are in the field with complete outfits, which they are con- 

 stantly transferring from one tract to another. Their trams are all 

 the time being laid, taken up, and relaid. They are equipped with 

 eveiything needful for economical lumbering on a large scale. The 

 one formidable danger which they have to face is that they inay be 

 left without trees to cut. The strong probability is, not that the 

 owner of a good forest will have trouble in getting his timber to 

 market, but that invested capital will have trouble in finding forests 

 to occupy the plants on the continuous operation of which its profits 

 depend. 



CONSERVATIVE LUMBERING IN SHORTLEAF PINE FORESTS. 



Of pure shortleaf forest not enough remains uncut to make the 

 question of conservative management important. Of mixed pine and 

 upland oak forest there is }^et a fair amount untouched, but its value 

 is not great enough to support lumbering on the scale practiced in the 

 longleaf forest. It is really an area of small operations, and the only 

 opening for an application of principles of forestiy is to conduct the 

 lumbering in such a way as to permit the young pine now standing to 

 develop, and, so far as possible, to favor pine in the reproduction. 

 The forests of this region will find their chief usefulness as protective 

 forests and woodlots. 



