Interesting. I'll bet that in the old days losing a blank was not nearly as traumatic as it is now.

I have a friend who has two brothers in the hardwood logging business. They can look at a tree and pretty quickly tell you the value of it in its unfelled state, the expectancy of how much good wood they can get, and how much will be wasted. It's a strange thing to see them pay a couple thousand dollars for a single tree that doesn't look like much, but I guess they know what to do with it.