TIMBER PRODUCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19967, 8 December 1926, Page 7

TIMBER PRODUCTION

COMPARISON 9 OF COSTS. NEW ZEALAND AND AMERICA. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, December 7. Some of the reasons why the New Zealand timber miller cannot compete with the American miller in the matter of production costs were given by Mr G. Bartholomew, oi I 1 eliding, who returned i>y tne Niagara after a six months’ trip to the west coast of America, where he visited most of the .great lumber mills of the region. Mr Bartholmew described some of the huge mills he had seen, and spoke of one in me redwood country in California which had an Wea of 50,000 acres of splendid standing timber to work on. This forest, said Mr Bartholomew, was a sight for any sawrniller to look upon. One tree, which the owners claimed to be the tallest in the world, had a height of 412 ft, and was estimated to contain 200,000 ft of timber, which would represent a good month's cutting for the average Main Trunk mill. The company owning this forest had been working on it lor oO years, and would be cutting growing timber for the next 50 years. In addition to this the company was carrying out a policy ot afforestation. This company was cutting out about 1000 acres a year, the bush averaging about 100,000 ft per acre, while over the flat land the bush produced from 300,0COft to 400,000 ft per acre. In New Zealand 25,000 ft to the acre was considered very good, and a lot of hu«h land produced only 10,000 ft. The huge mill plant handling this output employed 1900 men. These men worked nine hours a day for six days a week with a minimum wage of four dollars a day. Mr Bartholomew pointed out that with the small areas available in New Zealand, the nature of the country, and the amount of unavoidable waste, due to the nature of the timber, the New Zealand millers could not put in the plants used by the American millers, and could not hope to get the return per acre. He was satisfied the Dominion’s mills had the best type of plant for New Zealand conditions. There was much he learned from the methods of the American millers, but, unfortunately, not much that could be applied here owing to the vast difference in the conditions of the two countries. Even with their vast organisations the American millers were not making money. Their domestic market was not taking the full output. The mills were so highly organised that they could not stop, and this meant they had to unload the surplus after the American market wxas satisfied. Much of this surplus came to the overseas markets, including New Zealand, and the rougher sorts went mainly tp Japan. In the mill which he had instanced there was very little waste as it was possible to utilise almost the whole of the log. He bad noticed the mill employed a number of women, who made good money on piece work preparing timber for cigar boxes and similar light work. In a number of mills on the west coast of the United States and in British Columbia most of the vard work was done by Japanese. Chinese, and Indians, the latter mostly working on contract.