52 LOGGING 
log than medium-sized or large timber, since a greater number 
of pieces are required to scale one thousand board feet, and various 
operations connected with the preparation of the logs and their 
movement to the primary transportation system are functions of 
the piece, rather than of volume. 
Studies made in California showed that on the operations in- 
vestigated "it costs three times as much per M. B. M. to make 
logs from 18-inch as from 48-inch trees, and that below that 
diameter the costs undoubtedly rise rapidly with each further 
decrease in size."^ Studies made in the Appalachian region 
indicate that the time required to skid logs with animals for a 
distance of 1000 feet, increases very rapidly with a decrease in 
the log size. Thus, to skid 6-inch logs requires 5.5 times, and 
12-inch logs 2.5 times as many hours per thousand feet log scale 
as 24-inch logs.^ 
Very large logs cannot be handled by an operator equipped to 
move medium-sized timber, except at an additional cost for labor, 
since the size of such logs often necessitates the loss of much time 
in adjusting the equipment to do the work. 
(5) Form of the trees. Short l)oles and heavy tops require 
extra labor in log-making, because it may only be possible to 
secure one log as a result of the felling operation, and the labor 
involved in swamping limbs often is equal in amount to that 
expended on a tree of longer bole from which several logs could 
be cut. 
(6) Conservative logging requirements. The enforcement of 
low stump, top lopping, brush piling, brusli burning, and other 
conservative logging regulations may cause an increase in the 
amount of labor reciuired to produce one thousand board feet 
of logs. There are conditions, however, in which brush disposal 
in dense stands of white pine has facilitated the skidding opera- 
tions, so that the cost of the brush disposal has been more than 
offset by cheaper skidding. 
Studies of the productivity of labor in the logging industry 
were made in 1915, covering supervision and general expense, 
felling and log-making, skidding, yarding and loading, transpor- 
' See The Relative Cost of Making Logs from Small and Large Timber, 
by Donald Bruce. Bui. 339, College of Agriculture, Agricultural Experiment 
Station, Berkeley, California, 1922. 
2 See Cost of Cutting Large and Small Timber, by W. W. Ashe. Southern 
Lumberman, Dec. 16, 1916, p. 91. 
