A great deal of lumber is now kiln-dried either after air-drying for a time or fresh from the saw, thereby making it fit for use much sooner than by air-drying alone. When the lumber is finally ready for the wholesale or retail dealer, it is again trans ported to the most likely sale-place, so that in any up-to-date market we find spruce from Maine, pop lar (whitewood) from the hard-wood belt between North and South, yellow pine and cypress from the South, cedar and redwood from the West. The best grades of American lumber are shared with other countries. The poorer grades are found on the local country yards.
Waste in lumbering.
Some thirty years ago only about 30 per cent of the available timber of a stand was placed on the yard. The best and most convenient was taken and the remainder left to grow, burn or decay as chance might determine. It did not pay in those days to be saving. With increased value, however, more care is now exercised to cut the crop closer. Some timber-land has been cut over for the third or fourth time, each time all that was worth har vesting being taken. Virgin stands are now worked very close in clean cutting where timber is valu able. All logs down to four inches at the top are taken to the mill, where there are two sets of saws.
As the logs come into the mill, the better ones are thrown to one saw and the poorer to the other. The better logs nearly all make lumber,while the poorer ones are mostly cut into four foot lengths from which is made wood alcohol, acetic acid, charcoal and the like. In hard-woods, the proportion is about one cord of wood to each thousand feet of lumber.
Where timber is valuable for fuel, the tops and limbs are worked into cord wood to supply local demand, and the brush in some cases is burned to avoid uncon trollable tires. This should be done more fre quently. The Forest Service has made investiga tions along this line and has found that in a cer tain locality in Minnesota the cost of burning the brush from pine timber was ten cents per thou sand feet of lumber. In other places it would be more or less, depending on conditions. Formerly, great vertical cylinders called consumers, used for burning waste, were conspicuous objects at a large mill (Fig. 480), but present economy in some places leaves these as monuments to mark a stage in the progress in the economical development of timber harvesting. On small timber lots there need be no waste except the small brush, which should be left scattered so that it will decay more readily if it is not convenient to burn it.
Valuation.
In disposing of a piece of timber, the owner should know by what rule the tim ber is to be scaled. There are some fifty
log rules ; any one of them may be used, but comparatively few of them are in common use. One rule may be used in one locality and a different one in an other locality. Theoretically, they should agree, because no rule can change the volume of a log. Logs are usually scaled at the small end inside the bark, but the practice of scaling in the middle prevails in some places. The rules that have found most favor are the Doyle, Doyle Scribner, and the Scribner. Just how log rules are computed is not always easy to ascer tain, but the Doyle rule is so simple that one may construct a table any time. It is essentially as fol lows : Reduce the diameter of the log at the small end by four inches ; square one-fourth of the re mainder and multiply by the length of the log in feet. By this rule, if a log is twenty inches in diameter and ten feet long, it contains 160 board feet. The Doyle rule gives less than Scribner's in logs up to about twenty-nine inches, and more than Scribner's above that.
Cost.
Other things being equal, it costs as much to harvest in ferior classes of timber, like beech and ma ple, as it does walnut and hickory, and more than pine and cedar ; hence the cost of harvest will be higher for the inferior timbers as com pared with their value. The cost of lay ing the lumber on the yard is frequently one-half the market price. There are many factors which must be considered, any one or all of which may vary with the kind of timber, distance from mill, appliances, kind of help, wages paid, and other items. When the pri vate owner can use help during part of the year that would otherwise he idle, as on the farm, he can deliver the logs to the mill at little expense and save that much on his stumpage.
Harvest time.
Ripeness and fitness determine when to cut.
Basket-willows, hoop-poles, fence-posts, telephone and telegraph poles, piles and the like, must be harvested when they are the proper size or age for the purpose ; but for lumber, the trees should stand until the climax of growth is well passed. Trees are often swept off just when they are doing their best. This is particularly true of white pine, for which there is always a demand. This species makes its best growth from the thirtieth to the eightieth year, but good profit on clear stuff in the future is often sacri ficed for box material at present. Species that are prone to decay while standing should be cut when in full vigor. The owner of small pieces of timber will adapt such appliances as best suit his needs, and choose such time or season for harvest as will most eco nomically meet his de mands.