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In the first place, how big do you think our wood-lot is--10 acres, 50 acres, 100 acres? No, it's 168,000,000 acres! When I say "our" wood-lot, in this sense I mean, of course, the big, national wood-lot of which sections are located on all the farms that have wood-lots; and if we regard all the wood-lots put together as "ours," we shall come a great deal nearer to the truth than if we think of ours only as the 10, 50, or 100 acres from which we hauled the load of firewood yesterday or on which we gathered the hickory-nuts last fall. This also I am sure you will agree to by the time we have finished the second section of this chapter, "Big Business in the Wood-Lot." This wood-lot of ours contains about one-third of all the forest-land in the United States; a farm woods equal in area to the whole of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. If so placed, it would make a strip of timber 100 miles wide, running from New York to San Francisco. But an important thing about it--a very important thing--is that it doesn't run from New York to San Francisco. Of the total 168,000,000 acres, 150,000,000 are in the eastern part of the country, i.e., east of the plains, while 61 per cent of the total forest area is west of the plains, far from the bulk of our population and its wood-using industries. Most of this remaining timber is in the forests of the Pacific coast; and that's a long way to go for saw-logs for building our houses and making our furniture and the thousand and one things for which wood is needed. In a department circular on the work of the National Forest Service, Chief Forester Greeley says: The greatness of the National Forest enterprise and the prominence accorded its accomplishments have given the impression to some that the problem of forestry is solved. This is by no means the case, for the National Forests contain only about one-sixth of the forest area.. Private owners hold seven-tenths of our timber-land.. The country must still look to private lands for a large part of its forest supplies.. but the forests in private hands are being depleted with great rapidity. WAKING UP NEIGHBOR JONES Now, whether Neighbor Jones has yet waked up to the fact that looking after his part of the national wood-lot is both good citizenship and good business, it is one of the most neighborly things we can do, as well as profitable for ourselves, to set him an example. One of the interesting things about wood-lot forestry is that, while it is a very profitable phase of farming for the farmer acting by himself, it is much more profitable where woodland-owners act together, particularly in that very essential phase of any business enterprise, "selling the goods." Selling timber is different from selling wheat, for example. For your wheat you get whatever the market price may be at the time of sale, but, in the case of the wood-lot crop, the identical kind and grade of timber which brings $50 per acre if sold in one way, will bring $200 if marketed in another way--the way in which all well-organized manufacturing concerns market their products and in which we "wood manufacturers' can market ours, by working together and following the same rules of good business. WHY FARM FORESTRY PAYS SO WELL The points about the marketing of timber are so interesting and so valuable a part of a wood scout's education that I am reserving the second section of this chapter for them. Here we will speak of farm forestry in general. One of these farm forests, if it is as well managed as any successful farmer manages the rest of his business, will supply all the farm needs for buildings, fences, fuel, and repairs, besides furnishing a surplus which can be sold for saw-logs, posts, poles, cross-ties, pulpwood, fuel, and the shorter pieces for such things as spokes, handles, spools, boxes, barrels, excelsior, and matches. By cutting and caring for your timber properly, you will always keep a stand of trees. It's like keeping some money in good stocks or bonds and only spending the dividends, or having money out at interest--only more so; for all a money investment can do is to earn interest or dividends, but tree investments, besides earning dividends, in the way of lumber and fuel, do other things. They improve the soil, and trees planted as windbreaks serve as a protection for the crops in the growing season and help shield the home and the live stock against both the hot winds of summer and the bitter winds of winter. Why, even if you never sell a stick of timber, your farm woodlands pay! The fire-wood, fence-posts, material for repairs and construction, and the time and money saved by having all these things ready at hand are worth much more than the slight trouble and expense of caring for the trees. WHERE THE "BURIED TREASURE" COMES IN But even this isn't all; and here's where the "buried treasure" comes in, the buried treasure I refer to in the heading of this section. The biggest thing about tree-farming is that it will bring good returns on land that wouldn't otherwise be worth anything--not a red cent! Grow your wood, not on good farm land that will be more profitable to put into other crops, but on land not suitable for cultivation, such as gullies or very rocky or steep slopes, barren soils, and swamps. As you saw in the November chapter, and as every Boy Scout learns in woodland hikes, there are kinds of trees that do well in all these situations. An unused corners and other small uncultivated spots about the farm are good places for rapid-growing, useful trees. The steep slopes and the gullied land should be devoted to tree-growing for still another reason. The gullying of land results from lack of trees. The roots of the trees hold the soil together and their trunks check the rapid flow of water, thus preventing the formation of gullies and the washing away of the soil. And the poor soil, pebbles, and sand, characteristic of steep slopes, being carried down over the better soil of lower levels, does it great injury and sometimes makes it entirely worthless for agriculture. And, being constantly fed into running streams, this waste soil helps fill up navigable streams and harbors which have to be constantly dredged at public expense; and that means digging into our pocketbooks, for who pays government taxes, if we don't? By a little care all such land may be made to grow valuable timber, and most of the work can be done in winter or at other times when other farm work is slack. All such work will be like depositing money in the bank, in the savings-bank where it draws interest; for, crops from farm woodlands are growing so much more valuable every year, with the increase in population and the rapidity with which our remaining timber is being cut and destroyed by forest-fires, that even small trees that used to be regarded as brush to be gotten rid of, are now in good demand. Says Chief Forester Greeley, in the pamphlet from which I have already quoted: The country is losing about 26,000,000,000 cubic feet annually from its forests and is growing but 6,000,000,000 feet. And yet farm woodlands, on the average, are yielding only from one-third to one-half the wood they could grow if managed in a more businesslike way, and this wood is often sold for half its market value. II. BIG BUSINESS IN THE WOOD-LOT But I know I'm safe in assuming that you are going to be the other kind of a farmer, the kind of farmer who manages his business in a businesslike way; otherwise why would you be reading this chapter which deals solely with the business aspects of tree-growing and the management of the farm in relation to its trees? Or, if you are looking forward to some other kind of a business career and happen to be living, not on a farm, but in a city or city suburb, so that your future investment in trees may be only in those around the home and, as a citizen, in the trees of the park or the streets, have your father read this chapter over with you and say, as a business man, if it isn't true that all the main features of the business end of industrial life, manufacturing, marketing, financing, and everything, are involved in the successful management of the business end of the wood-lot. So, in learning these things, besides increasing the returns from the wood-lot, you are getting hold of the fundamentals of business life. For example, in connection with the great industries of our country, you hear much about how, by modern methods, things which used to be thrown away as worthless are now worked up into "by-products" and made such a source of profit that it is often said the main products pay the running expenses and the by-products pay the dividends. Most of the great industries of to-day, as you have learned in that part of your history which tells of pioneer conditions, have developed out of the home industries on the farms of the days when people tanned their own leather, wove and made their own clothes, cured their own meat, and so on. But you should also make careful note of the fact that the huge national enterprises which have grown out of these home industries reach their highest efficiency and make the most profit when they make use of all the "scraps," as grandmother used to do and as is still done in all well-regulated kitchens. To take the packing industry as an illustration, the thoroughness with which this phase of good housekeeping is carried on has been expressed in the saying that "the packers turn everything about a pig into money, except the squeal." THE BY-PRODUCT IDEA IN THE WOOD-LOT Now, to apply this principle to one part of the management of the wood-lot, the cutting of the trees and the improvement work. The trees cut should be, first of all, those good only for fire-wood, and the removal of which will give needed room to the remaining trees; trees which have been overtopped by others and had their growth stunted; deformed or diseased trees; trees seriously injured by insects or fungi, or trees especially liable to such injury, as the Chestnut in regions visited by the Chestnut blight, or the Birch in the gypsy-moth area; badly fire-scarred trees; trees of the less valuable species, such as the Aspen, the Blue Beech, Gray Birch, Black Oak, Black-Jack Oak, Sourwood, Ironwood, which are crowding the more valuable Sugar-Maples, White or Short-Leaf Pines, Yellow Poplar, or White Oak; crooked trees and trees with large crowns and short trunks, which will not make good lumber and which are crowding or overtopping others; slow-growing trees which are crowding fast-growing trees of equal value; dead trees, both standing and down. Not only are the last named valuable for fuel or lumber, but being dead they will, if allowed to remain, become breeding-places for insects or fungi. By doing some of this work each year the home forest can be put into good condition in a relatively short time and the wood removed is a by-product of the improvement work, which can either be used for fuel or other farm purposes or sold. Trees which are to be sold should first be measured so as to learn, before offering them for sale, how much saw-timber or other products they contain. Of course where a farmer can't do this estimating himself, it may be necessary to pay some one for doing it, and this is often done; but where a farmer has, right on his own farm, a bright boy like you, one or the other of you will write to your state forester or to the Department of Agriculture at Washington and get a pamphlet with measurement tables and instructions in the simple method by which this measuring can be done. QUITE A DIFFERENCE, ISN'T IT, 270 PER CENT? One of the many good things about this wood-lot business is that if at the time you have timber to sell there's prospect of a higher market, you can hold it. A crop of standing timber, unlike other crops, will not only "keep" indefinitely, but it goes right on getting bigger while waiting for higher prices. Yet, on the other hand, when you want to sell your wheat or your corn or your apples, you can always find what the market price is by looking at the market page of your daily or calling up local dealers. But in the case of timber it's different, very different, as you may judge from the following actual example: A woodland-owner received an offer of $1,500 for a tract of timber, which he was inclined to accept as a fair price. Before the sale was made, however, he requested the advice of the state forester as to the amount and value of the timber. The state forester had an examination made of the tract, estimated the market value of the timber, and furnished the owner a list of timber operators who might be buyers. The timber was then advertised for sale, through small, inexpensive announcements, with the result that the man who had previously made the $1,500 offer raised his bid to $4,500, and the sale was finally made to another buyer for $5,500. Not only was the original offer, by the application of business methods, thus increased nearly 270 per cent, but by the same process the tract was left in excellent condition. The expert from the state forester's office marked the trees to be cut with a view to leaving the young, growing timber on the ground, together with sufficient seed-trees to restock the open places. The written contract--you should never fail to have a written contract--also required the lopping off of the tops, which were to be left for fuel, and the scattering of the remaining brush made by the lumbering operations, as a precaution against the spread of fire. WHERE YOU CAN HELP IN THE MARKETING The development of our forest service is not such in all States that every farmer can get similar help from this source, or the amount of timber he has to sell may not warrant even the moderate expense involved in employing an expert to estimate its value, but there are things he can always do for himself, and some of these any wide-awake boy can help him do. To find a buyer, inquire of the neighbors who have sold, or at local sawmills, wood-yards, wood-using factories, railroad-stations (for the sale of ties, etc.), and telephone companies; put a small announcement in the local papers and write personal letters furnishing a brief description of the kind, quality, and amount of timber for sale. Of course, after that little story of the 270 per cent advance, you don't need to be told not to sell to the first buyer that happens along, and that a number of bids for the same piece of timber will get you a better price. THE BEST PLAN OF ALL But most of all can be done when the farmers of a whole community get together in an organized way, as men do in other lines of business, and as the farmers themselves, in various parts of the country, have been doing for a good many years in other lines--in selling their apples or potatoes or operating their own grain-elevators, through cooperative companies. These co-operative companies, where properly managed, have been of great benefit to the members, and there are even more reasons for such organizations for the marketing of timber. One reason is that, as we have just seen, the marketing of timber is not so simple as the marketing of grain and other products of the farm. On account of the lower freight-rates, it is more profitable to ship anything, including saw-logs or lumber, in car-load lots. It also saves freight where the timber, instead of being shipped as logs, is first sawed up into lumber, for then you pay freight only on the lumber and not on the waste from the saw-log. Another thing is that different kinds and grades of lumber are charged different freight-rates. The individual farmer doesn't have enough woodland to justify buying a portable sawmill, and even where he can get his timber turned into lumber at some local mill, he hasn't enough of the different grades to make up car-load lots. Where the farmers of a community act together, however, they can profitably operate a portable sawmill and have, among them, enough lumber to make up car-loads of the different grades. Moreover, and this is a very important thing, they can employ as manager of their milling and marketing a manager who is well acquainted with the lumber business and can perform the duties which, in large manufacturing corporations of all kinds, are attended to by different individuals--plant superintendents, sales-agents, traffic-managers, and so on. The first thing such a manager would do would be to make a careful survey of the woodlands of the members of the association. This would include not only an estimate of the various species of trees and the total amount of lumber they would produce, but such things as the probable profit to be made from by-products--charcoal from wood not fit for other uses, bark for tanning, and so forth. Then he decides as to the amount of equipment required--machinery, auto-trucks, railroad sidings--and submits his recommendations and the cost of carrying them out for the approval of the board of directors of the association. At certain seasons he visits the wood-using industries of the nearest cities and takes orders in advance for the various classes of lumber which his association can supply, and the amount of lumber required is alloted among the members in proportion to the supply on their lands. If there is already a sawmill in a near-by town the sawing can be done there, but, in any case, every member of the association, no matter how small the amount he has to sell, gets the advantage of proper grading, car-load rates, and all the rest of it. You can see also that such an association saves its members time and money by supplying them with fence-posts and lumber for all sorts of farm purposes. In fruit-growing regions farmers frequently have to pay very high prices for boxes and barrels. The machinery for making these is usually too expensive for the individual fruit-grower, but it is not so with an association. In spite of all these advantages, however, I'm sorry to have to tell you that the timber on most farms is, from force of habit, still sold in the same old way. In France, on the other hand, whose total forest area is no greater than that of one of our States, but where they have learned, by dearer experience than we have yet gone through, what woodlands are really worth, whole towns are built up and maintained by the wood-working industries created by the carefully managed woodlands of the peasant farmers, who also, many of them, work in these factories in winter; while in our own country privately owned forests and wood-lots are usually so wastefully managed that after a few years they are gone and there is no profitable winter work for the farmers. This has been one of the causes for the abandonment of farms and of whole communities in the less favorable agricultural regions. I want you, in addition to other aspects of the knowledge of forestry and its relation to citizenship, to have such a clear grasp of the benefits of organization in business that you will be one of the leading spirits in your community for getting the neighbors together in this as well as other enterprises for the public good. |
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