Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-09-02
BIG LUMBER CUT
Land Agent Ring Says Such
Are Indications.
lumbermen Must Look out for the
Smallpox.
Is 1reat Menace to the Industry Says
He.

Inc Indications are that the coming
winter Will see one of the greatest cuts
Oh logs ever known in Maine. Such is
the gist OF statement which Land
Agent Ring made to the Journal re-
porter on Tuesday.
1t has been years." said he, "since
the lumber market was il better con-
dition than it now is. Sawed lumber
is bringing good prices and there is a
good steady demand. Under these con-
ditlons, operators are hopeful and have
the courage to go into the woods and
90 business on an extensive scale. The
result of this will be that all of them
Will cut every log, which it is possible
TO get upon the yards and into the
brooks and streams, so as to drive
them next year.
Demand for logs, both for pulp and
saving purposes, is good and prices are
III excess of anything previously Of
fered. This is another incentive for
the operators to cut all they can during
the winter which is nearly upon us.
1t was this same demand which caused
the great log cut in the State last VIM
ter.
But there is one thing" continued
the land agent, (which may work to
less they pay great heed to it and are
very careful in the men whom they
hire and send into their camps.
THAT is the danger from smallpox.
If men from the provinces are hired
indiscriminately this is very liable to
become epidemic, and that would have
serious consequences in the numbering
industry, as it did a few years ago in
Minnesota. The disease got into the
camps in the northern part of that
state and before it was finally stamped
out, nearly ruined the business for the
year and did ruin a very large number
of the smaller operators. Should it get
into our lumber camps the same result
would be had, I fear.
when the disease gets into a camp
that camp has to be burned, for that is
about the only real way in which it can
be disinfected, from the nature of its
construction. This means Il great deal,
when a large number of camps are
concerned, and when it should fall
upon small operators, who would lose
their supplies and everything, as we'll
as the winters operations, the conse-
quences are obvious. OF course, we
hope that nothing of the kind will oc-
cur, but in order to guard against it, it
is very essential that all the operators
shall use great care and caution in
sending crews into the woods.
"They should be careful to see that
their men, especially the provincials,
do not come from a section where the
disease is prevalent, and that all their
men have been or are vaccinated With
these precautions, it would seem, the
disease can be kept out of the woods
the coming winter and Maine benefited
thereby to the extent of many million
dollars.
las yet, there is no great amount of
smallpox in the State. A few isolated
cases along the extreme northern Dor
der are all that are now known.
Still it behooves all to use care and
do all in their power to prevent it's get
ting a foothOld in the State.
"No people in Maine are more deeply
interested in this than are the lumber
men. 1t is for their interests, almost
entirely. If the disease gets into the
camps, as 1 have before called atten-
ton to. it will mean a great monetary
loss to Them therefore they are the
ones who should be the most jealous in
guarding against it's coming into the
State and getting a foothold. The only
way for them to do this is to guard
against it in the ways I have suggest
ed.
IF they are alive to their own inter-
cStS they will do it."