the possible leaks are so many, quickly draining the
most abundant resources, that few not brought up through a long
apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal of money has been and is made
in timber. A great deal has been lost, simply because, while the
possibilities are alluring, the complexity of the numerous problems is
unseen.

At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods with a crew
of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths, dragged them to the roads
already prepared, piled them on sleighs, hauled them to the river, and
stacked them there. In the spring you floated the logs to the mill where
they were sawed into boards, laden into sailing vessels or steam barges,
and taken to market. There was the whole process in a nutshell. Of
course, there would be details and obstructions to cope with. But
between the eighty thousand dollars or so worth of trees standing in the
forest and the quarter-million dollars or so they represented at the
market seemed space enough to allow for many reverses.

As time went on, however, the young man came more justly to realize the
minuteness of the bits comprising this complicated mosaic. From keeping
men to the point of returning, in work, the worth of their wages; from
so correlating and arranging that work that all might be busy and not
some waiting for others; up through the anxieties of weather and the
sullen or active opposition of natural forces, to the higher levels of
competition and contracts, his awakened attention taught him that
legitimate profits could attend only on vigilant and minute attention,
on comprehensive knowledge of detail, on experience, and on natural
gift. The feeding of men abundantly at a small price involved questions
of buying, transportation and forethought, not to speak of concrete
knowledge of how much such things should ideally be worth. Tools by the
thousand were needed at certain places and at certain times. They must
be cared for and accounted for. Horses, and their feed, equipment and
care, made another not inconsiderable item both of expense and
attention. And so with a thousand and one details which it would be
superfluous to enumerate here. Each cost money, and some one's time.
Relaxed attention might make each cost a few pennies more. What do a few
pennies amount to? Two things: a lowering of the standard of efficiency,
and, in the long run, many dollars. If incompetence, or inexperience
should be added to relaxed attention, s