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Yole Forestry Deon Finds the Russiqns Resort to Copitolist Systems to Get Out the Lumber

New !Iry.l, Conn.The Soviet Union is lagging behind the United States in both quantity and quality of wood products, says Dean George A. Garratt of the Yale School of Forestry, who was a member of a seven-man team of forestry experts from America who spent a month last summer touring. forestry schools, wood-products plants and the Iorests oI l(ussta.

Wood production is being speeded under a severl-year plan, but "the progress to date appears to be in the area of mechanization rather than in the technology of wood use." As a_ result, he went on, "improvements in quality of wood products in the Soviet Union are not rrearly-so siriking as the increases in quantity."

In several of the wood-product plants the American foresters visited, he said, "the processing appeared plagued with outdated_ design, backwird methods ^of produciion, antiquated and..inadequate machinery, and low- quality oi the production."

The vast forests of the U.S.S.R. cover some 2,827,000,000 acres, he said, as compared to 784,000,000 acres of total forest land in the United States. But most of the Russian forests are softwoods and its hardwood stands are much less.than American, both in extent and in diversity of specles.

In output, Russia produced 34 billion board feet of sawed l.q-!9_t in 1958, as against American production of close to 40 billion board feet.

-"IJnder the seven-year plan," he continued, ,.production goals for the forest industries in Russia call for a markecl increase in virtually all categories of wood products. In contrast to_the expected 1959 manufacture of prefabricated houses in the equivalent ol I07 million rquare feet of floor space, t_he S9vlet sawmills have a goal oi three tines this output by 1962."

Production goals, however, are still far below American production figures, he declared.

He said the American foresters found a ..general use of cap.italistic incentives, such as the bonus system, as a spur to increased productivity."

HATTY BROS.

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