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I got ahold of a local newspaper from 1937 the other day. Timber company was advertising sale of logged-off land for $1 to $25 per acre, with the more expensive land being considered suitable for farming if it was cleared of stumps. In those days, they didn't replant trees, and once the land was logged off, it was of little value. By looking at other ads, you could pick up 10 acres of the "good stuff" for the price of a 5 year old used car. An acre of the buck-an-acre land could be had for the price (on sale) of 3 dozen oranges, or 5 boxes of Kellogg's All Bran. I've eaten All Bran, and in my estimation, that would be a pretty good use for the stuff. In the late '30's, a timber company out near the coast offered the graduating seniors at the local high school 40 acres each of cutover land, feee, no strings attached. Only one kid took them up on it. And the guy telling me about it admitted he wasn't that kid. He did tell of trying to buy 100 acres of bottomland after WWII, which, unfortunately, was attached to 350 acres of cutover timberland. He didn't want the timber land, but the guy wouldn't separate them- Told my friend, "If I don't sell it with the farmland, I'll be stuck with it for the rest of my life." A deal was struck- $10,000 for the farmland, on a conventional contract. $5,000 for the forest land, no payments or interest accrual for 10 years, then payments start. This story was told to me just after he had sold all the timber for a couple million bucks, in about 1978. First thing he did was go buy a brand new baler, so his wife could quit riding on the back of the old IH 45, manually tying the missed knots.
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