From Trees To Lumber (1953)

hold the character of a nation. Trees provided and the raw material for their first business of life. Ever growing, ever producing forests are America's greatest renewable natural resource. Today, our forests are growing more timber than ever before. All across the country, forests still ring with the stirring cry of timber. [Music] The epic story of lumber finds rhythm and sound in 60,000 sawmills. Whining saws sing a song of progress and permanence. Carpenters pick up the rhythm as they cut and shape the boards and nail them together. Walls are raised into place. [Music] Roofs are added. Soon, a house is ready to become a home. Construction scenes like these are repeated time and again across America as we build a million new homes a year. Lumber is essential in building all of them. Lumber finds many uses. It builds our churches. It builds our schools. Farmers use lumber to build their houses, barns, sheds, and fences. Now back to the forest for a closer look at the source of this allimportant harvest. Here, a farmer finds profitable winter work on his own woodland. His wood harvest provides posts, poles, and fuel for use on the farm. He sells logs to a nearby mill for cash. First step in a timber harvest is the selection of trees for cutting. Young, vigorous trees are left to grow. Foresters use paint guns to mark mature trees for harvest. Behind the forester come the fallers. Here they make the undercut that determines direction the tree will fall. This or with motor-driven chainsaws, trees are cut close to the ground to save extra inches of wood for lumber. Today's lumber harvest is fast, efficient. Loggers chop away the limbs and cut the tree trunk into saw logs, which powerful tractors skid to loading decks. These logs are hoisted aboard trucks for transport to the mill. In many mills, the ride ends with a plunge in the pond. There sure boom men separate the logs for different uses and with long pike poles guide them to the bullchain. On the gets a stinging shower to wash away grit and dirt that might damage saws. The sawing process begins at the head rig. Small mills use circular head saws. Larger mills use band saws like this. Each time the log move position for the next cut [Applause] on this carriage, the log rides piston-like back and forth past the singing saws. Slabs, boards, and timbers severed from the log move away on power rollers. Each piece is further refined. [Music] [Applause] With hand signals, the sawyer directs every movement of the log and determines the size and position of each cut. The sawing process continues here. Freshly cut boards move through the edger. Twin saws rip off uneven surfaces on each side and reduce boards to desired widths. At the trimmer table, a skilled operator moves regularly space circular saws up and down to cut out defects in individual boards and square their ends at desired lengths. From the trimmer, lumber moves on down the production line. Here on the green chain, a lumber expert grades each board. Other men sort the graded lumber for storage and future use. All boards leave the mill as green lumber. Lumber may be seasoned in oven-like dry kils where moisture and temperature are controlled by precision instruments or in open air drying yards. Sometimes a combination of both seasoning methods is used. Some rough lumber goes into construction work. The rest is processed for specialized markets. Here, a planer cuts and smooths rough lumber into finished lumber. Some boards are specially grooved and shaped for flooring, siding, molding, and many other dimension materials that supply the thousand1 needs of America's builders. Some becomes framing for windows or siding for houses or flooring. All are essential items in the building of most American homes. Modern Americans, like their colonial forebears, look to wood and product made from wood for their welfare and comfort. Skilled craftsmen fashion fine hardwoods into chairs, tables, and many other pieces of durable furniture that grace our homes. Wood is used for paneling, and wood transformed by the magic of chemistry serves us in the form of plastics, paper, and rayon. Small blocks of hardwood become heels for women's shoes. These pieces of wood are fitted together to make a bucket. Sometimes pieces of wood are fitted and glued together to form laminated timbers tough strong as steel. Wood has many uses. It's made into baseball bats, broom handles, barrels, and packing boxes. The steel rails that support America's trains rest on wood. For safety, comfort, and economy, there is no satisfactory substitute for the wooden cross tie. Plywood is another wood product essential to modern living. It is made of thin layers of wood called veneer, held together by glue. Veneer is peeled from logs like this. Razor-sharp knives slice an endless sheet of wood from the turning log. desired are dried and glued together in crisscross pattern to form plywood. Plywood finds many construction uses. Here it provides forms for cement. Smooth plywood panels are easy to handle and durable. Plywood helps build our homes. Its strength and flexibility and convenient size make ideal for even the most difficult jobs. Plywood is used for interior finishing and for cabinets and cups. Fast, easy to handle and seaorthy. Like lumber, plywood is an all-purpose product. Behind all this stand our forests, vast, vigorous, green, growing. But these forests need man's help. They must be managed wisely, protected from insects, disease, and fire. Symbol of America's woodland protection system is the fire tower. High above surrounding forest areas, lookouts keep constant vigil. At the first sign of smoke, an alarm goes out. Oh, [Music] firefighters speed to the scene. Every second counts. If spotted in time, a small fire can be brought under control in a few minutes. Unchecked, the same fire may race across a great expanse of forest, killing all in its path. This is the mark fire leaves on the land. Devastation, destruction. Most of this waste can be prevented. Most forest fires are man-caused. Some progress is being with fire in the woods. [Music] In nurseries like this, little trees grow from seed under the careful care of experts. When old enough, the seedlings are lifted from their nursery beds and replanted in open areas. Sometimes little trees are planted by hand and sometimes by tractordrawn machines. [Music] Forest land owners in the United States plant 500 million trees a year. These planted trees are 6 years old and growing fast. These are about 30 years old. However, most trees in America grow from seed dropped by parent trees. Scattered across the forest floor by wind and water. These tree seeds sprout and mature. Today's tree farming practices produce the forest products we need even as we grow trees for tomorrow's harvest. This then is the story of lumber and its allied products. It is also the story of the green forests that produce them.