Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1919-08-08
Trees in Forests Must Be ne
placed or Great Scarcity
viii Result.
SAW MILLS SMALL FACTOR
Pulp Mills Eat Up Many Millions Of
Spruce Every Year - Scientific
Forestry Has Not Caught Up
to Tree Slaughter.

Bangor. Me.-When the world gets
through with its arguments about war.
peace, the Cor AZ League of Nations
and ell that is expressed In the
short and ugly word rum" It should
turn its most serious and intelligent
attention TO tree farming. Positively,
there must be many more trees, or
constant and liberal REIMBURSEMENT of
the existing supply. or presently we
shall suffer great Inconvenience from
the scarcity of many useful and some
ornamental things.
In the simple and innocent old times
tree was just so much standing lum-
Der, and iI'7ber was cheap. Within
the memory Of men of middle age
flrst-class spruce logs sold in Bangor
at $11 TO $14 per thousand feet. The
men who cut the logs were paid SIS
TO $50 a month an6 board, the board
consisting chiefly OF a bunk to sleep
In and "heans twenty-one times
week" The men who drove" the
same logs, that Is, personally con-
Quoted them down the roaring brooks
and raging rivers, received for their
labors and hair-raising risks, 1929 10
81 a day, according to tleir athletic
skill and their fame as ",yhite water
men," and of course all hands were
fed, although the menu WIS character
hed by monotonous simplicity and
the service subject to many irregn-
Iarities and postponements. These
same logs were sawed In mills TINT
ornamented the harSAs of the Penob-
scot for fifty miles or more chiefly
between Milford and Bangor. n dis
lance of about fifteen miles. The mill
hands went TO work very early In the
morning and kept ut II until long af-
ter everyone else had quit for the
day. being rewarded to the extent Of
about $40 month and all the corncl
beef. cabbage etc, they could eat In
twenty to thirty minutes. three or
four times day. according to sea-
sos
Profit TO Manufacturer.
The understanding spruce that was
sliced off by the saws was worth
| S14 10 sd per thousand feet, accord
Ing to quality and dimensions, This
would seem to allow of slight profit
10 the manufacturer but there are
various ways of measuring logs and
lrpher-woods scale. boom scale and
; - scale-and during the golden era
Of Bangors spruce trade the iucClerv
of figures was such that 1000 feet Of
logs, boom scale would "Saw out"
anywhere from 1.1J0 to 1.400 feet OF
lsmber. 1000 feet being a fai. aver
hge. So, even In the gloomieet days,
when heavy spruce dimensions were
selling mt sol to s23 and the Bangor
hlill men would sit in their Offices
chewing tobacco and cussing the hard
tines they were IN fact making ?
pretty good thing especially II they
happened to own the land the logs
we're cut from.
Then, last of all, the coasters who
carried the lumber to Boston. the
Sound and New York got S1.75, 1925
md $3.50 per thousand feet for de-
livery at those several destinations
that is, the rates quoted prevailed
during fairly good times. In dun
times lumber was carried from Ban.
COR ia Boston as cheaply as $1.25 10
$3.50 per thousand. to Long Island
sound ports at S1.75 to 50, and to New
York at 81 to 1925.
Now everything is changed. OF
Names normal log cut of 1,000000.-
600 feet, at least 60 per cent goes in
to pulp and paper. The native log
ger, who swung a sharp AK skillfully
at SIS to 500 month and was con
tent to live on baked beans and
sailed fish, has been succeeded by
polyglot mob that uses saws Ian
guidly at $50 to SEQ a month, de.
mands hotel fare, frequent payments
polite treatment and every few weeks
a vacation. The logs for the most
part. are cut into four-foot lengths
and they 90 to the big pulp and paper
mills owned by corporations that long
ago bought up hundlcds of thousands
of acres of the best timber In Malno.