"A little of both," admitted Welton; "but it's more because the business
is made up of ten thousand little businesses. You have to conduct a
cruising business, and a full-fledged real estate and mortgage business;
you have to build houses and factories, make roads, build railroads; you
have to do a livery trade, and be on the market for a thousand little
things. Between the one dollar you pay for stumpage and the twenty
dollars you get for lumber lies all these things. Along comes your
hardware man and says, Here, why don't you put in my new kind of spark
arrestor; think how little it costs; what's fifty dollars to a
half-million-dollar business? The spark arrester's a good thing all
right, so you put it in. And then there's maybe a chance to use a little
paint and make the shanties look like something besides shanties; that
don't cost much, either, to a half-million-dollar business. And so on
through a thousand things. And by and by it's costing twenty dollars and
one cent to get your lumber to market; and it's B-U-S-T, bust!"
"That's economic waste," put in Merker.
"Or lack of experience," added Bob.
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