I am not sure the Prattville, Selma, Childersburg bigger mills where I used to work would give a dealership to a 'temporary' transient logger. Heck, I heard stories of them denying dealerships to timber buyers that broke off of established dealers to start their own company... and the only thing the mills care of the landowners is their last name, to name the tract for their internal auditing systems.

Why would he want to leave his own high production area to come cut his friend's wood anyway? Doesn't he have quota to fill at the other mills he hauls to? If he drops a substantial amount of that quota (cutting his friend's timber for 5, 6, 7 months and hauling to other mills) it likely would be detrimental to his home base of operations. In other words, the logger's regular mills would be pissed to miss that guy's production and likely would punish him severely when he came back by limiting him quota... or blacklisting them from the mill altogether.

2Dogs: you are probably shaking your head at my response, but this is my knee-jerk reaction.

Heck maybe the logger from another area is part owner in the land. You saying mills cut you off for not moving enough timber? Effectively penalizing you? In our area the last thing the paper mill or saw mills sawing grade logs would do is piss off one of their major producers. That sounds like one F'ed up place down there.

When our paper mill puts on a quota, it's to cut back. Say in summer when it's dry they may be covered up and have a full yard, they'll cut the loggers back. Or if they are on shut down they may "cut them off" . But they just move saw logs and when quota is raised the start hauling more to the paper mill.

There's money in farming now, any of those folks that planted pines in the black belt going back to farming? Maybe going to cattle?

The paper mills up here operate a lot like the sawmills in the south........

But all you need to be able to haul logs to any sawmill up this way is a pickup truck and a little pull behind trailer

The paper mills up here operate a lot like the sawmills in the south........

But all you need to be able to haul logs to any sawmill up this way is a pickup truck and a little pull behind trailer

Do you mean for pulp?
I just signed a contract for $6 per ton on a first thinning, so all pulp; however it is a good bit more than that for chip-n-saw or saw timber.

But the mills decided to do away with those people and they did. And they bought out the smaller mills just to shut them down.

One of the Alabama plywood mills use to make a nice profit by culling logs from loads, wouldn't pay for them, and then peel the logs anyway. Everybody lost, except the mill.