LOGGING IN THE DOUGLAS FIE REGION. 47 
COST. 
The cost of felling and bucking in the region ranges from $0.45 
to $1 per thousand feet, averaging about $0.65. Cost data dealing 
with 40 large camps indicate that the average costs per thousand 
feet by districts are as follows : 
Puget Sound $0. 68 
Grays Harbor . 62 
Willapa Harbor . 62 
Columbia River .70 
FACTOES INFLUENCING THE COST. 
Considering how much the cost of felling and bucking varies in 
different camps, to estimate it in a given case is no simple matter. 
Furthermore, it varies in the same camp at different times. At one 
camp it decreased steadily from $1.10 to $0.50 per thousand feet in 
five years, presumably because of increasing efficiency in the man- 
agement; at another, it increased more or less steadily from $0.55 
to $0.82 per thousand feet, largely because of the changing character 
of the show. 
In a general way the following factors influence the cost of felling 
and bucking: 
(1) Efficiency of labor and management. 
(2) Scale of wages. 
(3) Weather conditions. There is no doubt that the output of 
fallers and buckers varies with the weather and the length of the 
working day as fixed by light conditions. In timber appraisal not 
much weight need be given this factor. In collecting cost data 
and in making studies to arrive at standards to be used with bonus 
systems or systems for checking up the daily output of the workers 
considerable weight should be given it where the studies cover a 
relatively short period of time. 
(4) The size of timber. It would seem, other factors being 
excluded, that the output of a set of fallers and buckers should, 
within certain limits, increase with the size of timber, both in height 
and diameter. Obviously, the output will be larger where the 
timber is relatively tall than where the opposite is the case. Then, 
too, the diameter seems to affect the output, fallers feeling that they 
secure the best results in timber that runs from 30 to 40 inches in 
diameter at breast height. If the factors of breakage and defect 
could be eliminated, they would probably do their best work in 
slightly larger timber. 
(5) The percentage of breakage, the density of the stand, and the 
species of timber. Of these three factors, breakage is by far the most 
important. It is obvious that the output will be less where the per- 
centage of breakage amounts to 40 per cent than where it amounts to 
