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38 WORKING PLAN, FOREST LANDS IN ALABAMA. 
_ Thus far we have assumed all merchantable timber to be of equal 
value; but this is not correct. A factor of very considerable impor- 
tance—one which has never before been reckoned with in dealing with 
longleaf pine—is the difference in value of lumber sawed from trees 
of different sizes. 
_ Large trees, if sound, are worth more in proportion than small 
trees; that is, a thousand board feet sawed from large trees are worth 
more than an equal quantity of lumber sawed from small trees. This 
is true because large trees produce a higher proportion of the better 
grades of lumber. It is apparent, therefore, that the lumberman by 
holding his small trees until they reach a larger size gains in two ways 
first, he secures a quantity increase, and, second, a guality increase. 
Every tree has in it a considerable amount of lumber which is man- 
ufactured either at a very small profit, at no profit at all, or at an 
actual loss. The large trees carry a much smaller proportion of this 
dead weight than the small ones, yet the expense of handling all sizes 
of trees is reckoned as about the same. The lumberman would like to 
manufacture only profitable grades, but this is impossible. Hence he 
must use great efforts and be at considerable expense to find or create 
markets for the disposal of his least profitable, or wholly unprofitable, 
products. 
Another consideration is the speculative feature of the lumber 
market. The most conservative lumbermen in the South are generally 
looking forward to an increase in the value of their products. This 
increase, when it comes, will almost certainly apply more extensively 
to the choice grades of lumber than to the common grades, because the 
scarcity of supply is always first apparent in a scarcity of the choice 
grades. The common grades have always been more or less plentiful; 
it is probable that southern lumbermen are obtaining as much for them 
now as they will for a long time. 
In order to determine what trees are now most profitable to cut on 
the tract and what trees should be left, an experiment was made at the 
mill in Coosa County. Two men in the woods followed saw crews and 
marked and measured sound trees as they were felled. Each tree, and 
each log in that tree, received a separate number, which was chalked 
on both ends of the log with blue crayon. Thus 479° indicated the 
third log from tree 479. The diameter breasthigh, the length, and 
the diameter of each log were measured. When these marked logs 
reached the mill the dimensions and the grade of each piece of lumber 
sawed from them were tallied. In this way the amount of each grade 
of lumber sawed from each marked log was learned, and by putting 
together the logs, totals for the trees were determined. By grouping 
all the trees of each diameter class, and dividing by the number of 
trees in each class, averages were struck. 
