are eliminated.  Most states have state foresters who examine woodlands and advise the owner just what to do.  It pays to advertise in the newspapers and secure as many competitive bids as possible for the timber on the stump.  Generally, unless the prices offered for such timber are unusually high, the farmer will get greater returns by logging and sawing the timber and selling it in the form of lumber and other wood products.  The farmer who owns a large forest tract should have some reliable and experienced timberman carefully inspect his timber and estimate the amount and value.  The owner should deal with only responsible buyers.  He should use a written agreement in selling timber, particularly where the purchaser is to do the cutting.  The farm woodland owner must always bear in mind that standing timber can always be held over a period of low prices without rapid deterioration.  In selling lumber, the best plan is to use the inferior timber at home for building and repair work and to market the best of the material.

CHAPTER XVII

PUTTING WOOD WASTE TO WORK

For many years technical studies of wood were neglected.  Detailed investigations of steel, concrete, oil, rubber and other materials were made but wood apparently was forgotten.  It has been only during the last decade since the establishment of the Forest Products Laboratory of the United States Forest Service, at Madison, Wisconsin, that tests and experiments to determine the real value of different woods have been begun.  One of the big problems of the government scientists at that station, which is conducted in cooeperation with the University of Wisconsin, is to check the needless waste of wood.  By actual test they find out all about the wasteful practices of lumbering in the woods and mills.  Then they try to educate and convert the lumbermen and manufacturers away from such practices.

The laboratory experts have already performed more than 500,000 tests with 149 different kinds of native woods.  As a result of these experiments, these woods are now being used to better advantage with less waste in the building and manufacturing industries.  A potential saving of at least 20 per cent. of the timbers used for building purposes is promised, which means a salvage of about $40,000,000 annually as a result of strength tests of southern yellow pine and Douglas fir.  Additional tests have shown that the red heartwood of hickory is just as strong and serviceable as the white sap wood.  Formerly, the custom has been to throw away the heartwood as useless.  This discovery greatly extends the use of our hickory supply.