Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER H FLOATING DEBTS. In the present generation when the stump- age owner, logger and millman are nearly always the same individual, it takes much more capital to operate the lumber business than it did in the old days. The timber holdings must be very large to warrant the construction of the modern mill, and supply it with cutting material for a sufficient number of years. The logging equipment comprises steam railways, locomotives and cars in addition to the woods tackle. All this gear costs heavily for every mile of road built and every thousand feet of timber taken out. The logging and milling crews are larger, the commissary more extensive, the pay rolls heavier, the liabilities of every nature more pressing. The cost of stump- age is tied up for a long term of years and can be collected only in small portions as the land is logged off. The money spent in the cutting of trails, building of railroads and construction of mills is a permanent investment that practically can never be reclaimed. The operator is forced to extend credit to the people who buy lumber from him and he carries them for any length of time from ten days up to six months. He must pay freights in cash, taxes are exorbitant and inexorable, and pay rolls can never be postponed. In time the floating debts and quick assets get out of all proportion and must be adjusted. An investigation is instituted to study each part and phase of the business in order to learn how to relieve the situation. This study commences with the timber holdings in the hope that some of them may be so situated as to permit being sold and turned into cash without hurting the logging layout or hampering the future operations. Instead of being in a position to sell stumpage, it is usually found that the mill is sawing up tim...