FOEEST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 77 



roads, bringing out large amounts of chestnut and pulp wood that 

 would otherwise be inaccessible. 



Some operators have objected to sending lumber down the flume be- 

 cause they say the ends of the boards are battered or rubbed enough 

 to spoil their fresh, finished appearance. This objection has been over- 

 come in two ways. By one method the boards are nailed end to end 

 so that in the flume there is a line of a dozen or more boards, each fas- 

 tened to the one in front of it by one small nail driven through them 

 both. This allows enough movement to follow the curves of the flume 

 and prevents the lumber jamming while it prevents also the rubbing 

 of the ends. The other method is to send the boards down the flume at 

 their full length untrimmed. The trimmer is installed at the outlet of 

 the flume, and can often be run by the water that comes down the 

 flume. In one large flume, in a county adjoining this region, the lum- 

 ber was floated down tied into bundles, and tanbark could be sent down 

 at the same time on top of the lumber. 



The cost of building a flume varies greatly. Some small ones have 

 been put up for $400 a mile, while others cost as high as $1,500 a mile. 

 The average cost would probably be about $1,000 a mile. The com- 

 paratively large initial cost and the necessary restriction as to location 

 make flume building an operation for the larger interests, and the aver- 

 age man who has cordwood to deliver at the railroad depends on the 

 public roads. 



WAGON ROADS. 



Probably three-quarters of all the timber is hauled to the railroad 

 over the county roads, so that they are the most important avenues of 

 transportation. While the movement for good roads is spreading rap- 

 idly and many of the mountain counties have done much to improve 

 their main highways, there is still large room for further improvement. 

 The length of haul for forest products varies from a minimum of two 

 for cordwood up to twenty-five miles for tanbark and lumber, and even 

 forty miles for dogwood blocks. The average haul, however, is about 

 8 miles, at an approximate cost of thirty-three and one-third cents per 

 mile per ton. It has been calculated that in general it costs at least 

 twice as much to haul timber from the stump to the railroad, as the 

 timber is worth standing in the woods. 



The size of the hauling bill is mainly due to lack of good roads. 

 The roads are commonly worked by the old labor tax system which re- 

 quires every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and forty- 

 five to work a certain number of days each year. A gradual change is 

 going on, and various counties are trying other systems in an effort to 



