All I can say is that things are much different in the rest of the state than northeast Alabama. I would not call a timber buyer a middle man because they are necessary to keep wood flowing to the mills. A landowner in our area can't call West Fraser, Resolute, IP or most other mills and get them to buy their timber. It just doesn't work that way here. There are very few mills who will buy directly from the landowner. And when you have products on your timber sale they don't accept at their mill then they would become a dealer selling your timber to another mill. Some of the timber we sell has as many as product sorts. A good mixed hardwood/pine stand will usually have at least 5 at a minimum so the wood is going to at least 4 different mills if pine and hardwood pulpwood are going to the same place.

To have plenty of quota at most mills down south you have to commit a high volume of wood consistently to that mill. A single logger can't produce that kind of volume even with more than one crew. The timber buyer/dealer usually has multiple loggers that work for them and some of those loggers have multiple crews. So more logging crews going through a single buyer gets them more quota and possibly a better delivered price so he can pay the loggers and the loggers can stay busy hauling wood instead of sitting at home because they don't have quota to haul to the mill.
There are a few mills that have their own logging crews but they still take a lot of wood from other loggers to supply the mill.