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As an early American humorist, Josh Billings, said, "there's a good deal of human nature in man," and a little knowledge of it comes in very handy in this wood-lot business as well as in other lines. Here's an example: Suppose, in a group of woodland counties in your State, you wanted to organize a co-operative marketing association, would you go first to the farmers in the backward counties that needed it most or to the farmers of the other sort, the kind you're going to be? This is what wise old Uncle Sam says about it in one of his valuable Farmers' Bulletins that may be had for the asking: "Efforts should be devoted at first to two or three counties selected by the county agents as most likely to be interested in the movement. More difficult counties, where there may be even more need for such associations, should be left until later. A few successful examples will make the most convincing argument." An 80-acre farm in Michigan had on it a 10-acre wood-lot, containing about 48,000 board-feet (A "board-foot" is the contents of a board one foot square and one inch thick. This is the common unit of measure for logs and lumber.) of Basswood and about 12,000 each of Hard Maple, Soft Maple, Red Oak, Elm, Ash, and Beech. Timber on an adjacent 10 acres had previously been sold for less than $100 per acre, or a total of about $1,000. Even this compares well with incomes commonly obtained from wood-lots in southern Michigan. Instead of selling on the first bid made, however, the owner, acting on the advice of an expert in a near-by forestry school, wrote to a number of wood-using concerns in different cities, from some of whom, after examination of his timber, he secured bids on the different species in his wood-lot. As a result of his bargaining he received--this was several years ago--sums amounting in the aggregate to nearly $2,000. For his Red Oak, bought for quarter sawing by a firm outside the State, he received $21 per thousand board-feet. His other trees were purchased by veneer companies, the Basswood returning $19 per thousand board-feet; Ash, $16; Elm and Hard Maple, $14; Soft Maple and Beech, $12. An owner in northeastern Ohio received bids of $550 and $600 for his timber. Following the advice of a relative who had previously run a portable sawmill, he hired one and sold at the prices named: White Oak butts, rough lumber for wagon stock, Hickory butts for bands and Elm butts..$1,350 Barn frame, cut and used on the farm, value..600 Five hundred railroad ties..250 Balance, consisting of cheaper poles, sap timber, cull and refuse, sold to buyer who had offered the $600..350 Gross receipts..2,550 Cost of operation..1,150 Net profit..$1,400 What per cent profit was this on his little investment in the lumbering business? Wilbur R. Mattoon, one of the examiners in the National Forest Service, tells in the Farmers' Bulletin on "Measuring and Marketing Farm Timber" of a wood-lot owner in western Ohio who had carefully protected his best timber for many years and who in 1914 accepted a local buyer's lump offer for the timber on 6.5 acres. The trees were tall, clean, good-sized White and Burr Oak of high grade. By careful measurement of the stumps and tops, made just after logging. Mr. Mattoon found that the tract had yielded not less than 14,500 board-feet per acre, or a total of over 84,500 board-feet. A fair price would have been $17 per 1,000 feet. How much did this farmer lose by not paying a little more attention to the "business end" of his wood-lot? Too bad, wasn't it? And he such a good farmer in other respects. When wood-lots on comparatively poor soil have been drawn on for years without replanting, the best source of natural fertilization, the leaves, having been constantly blown away, because of lack of trees to hold them, the remaining species are generally of an inferior kind or diseased. Then the best plan is to clear off the land entirely and replant, putting in trees that do best on that kind of soil. In making what are known as "improvement cuttings," where the stand of trees is very thin, these cuttings should be made gradually, because all trees -- good, bad, and indifferent -- prevent the winds from carrying off the dead leaves, thus not only wasting your best forest fertilizer, but exposing the ground to be dried out by both sun and wind. And it is unwise, even in a dense forest, to cut more than 25 per cent of the trees or to cut oftener on the same ground than once in five years. Stock-raising and tree-raising on the same land don't mix very well. Both horses and cattle eat and break down young trees and seedlings and pack the soil by their tramping. Moreover, if the trees amount to anything much, the grass under them, constantly shaded as it is, will be thin and of poor quality, anyhow. Sheep and goats destroy large numbers of small trees by eating them. Hogs root up the ground, digging up the young trees and roots and sometimes eating the roots. They also prevent young trees from starting, by eating the nuts and other seeds from which they grow. Yet there are times when Mr. Porker is useful as a forester. After logging, a new stand of young trees generally starts naturally from seeds or stump sprouts. This natural seeding process can be helped by harrowing the ground, or, before the seed is ready to fall, turning hogs into the woodland and letting them do the harrowing with their busy noses. The most thrifty sprouts come from stumps felled during the late fall, winter, or early spring, before the sap begins to flow; and you see how nicely that fits in with the fact that your wood-lot work can be done during the off seasons in farming. In the South, Pine should be cut during the cool part of the year. When it is cut in summer, bark-beetles and wood-borers injure the cut trees and spread to living trees, which they often kill. Does your father or any of the neighbors happen to own a creosote tank? If not, just figure out how much fencing you have on your place and then you can tell your father how he can save $8 to $23 per mile on his fencing. By means of a simple method of treating timber with coal-tar creosote such short-lived woods as Soft Maple, Beech, Birch, Sweet-Gum, young Sap Pine, and Red Oak are made durable for use in the ground for ten to twenty years. One of Uncle Sam's free pamphlets will tell you all about it. |
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