THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



13 



them would have cheerfully consented. 

 To the few who, for one reason or another, 

 did not wish to have the substitute servici' 

 the fair and honorable thing would have 

 been for Mr. Clancy to refund their money. 



But Mr. Clancy did not elect to do that. 

 That is, not at first. He side-stepped, as 

 it were. He turned over the mail of his 

 Foster agency to his Lumbermen's Credit 

 As.soeiation, and requests of subscribers to 

 the Foster agency for reports or other in- 

 formation were replied to by his Lumber- 

 men's Credit Association, saying that the 

 Foster Agency was out of existence, and 

 asking for subscriptions to the Lumber- 

 men's Credit Association. 



It would seem that Mr. Clancy, aside 

 from any mora! consideration, would have 

 had business sense enough to have known 

 that the 700 subscribers to the Foster 

 agency would not submit to such treat- 

 ment. The amounts were small in each 

 instance, but he should have expected con- 

 certed action. 



And concerted action was had. A num- 

 ber of tjje Chicago subscribers to the Fos- 

 ter agency met at the Chicago Lumber 

 Exchange and decided to push the matter 

 and force Mr. Clancy to take care of the 

 Foster agency contracts. At their request 

 Mr. F. F. Fish sent out a reciuest to the 

 subscribers for an assignment of their ac- 

 counts. Twenty-flve of those assignments 

 were received from among the best lumber 

 firms of the country, and placed in the 

 hands of an attorney, who brought suit in 

 the Superior Court of Cook County, asking 

 for the appointment of a receiver. That 

 suit is now pending. 



.\nd Mr. Clancy is ready to settle. He 

 has offered the parties to the suit, and, we 

 suppose, all the subscribers to the Foster 

 agency, to complete their contracts. And 

 we suppose the matter will be settled on 

 that basis and the suit withdrawn. 



But Mr. Clancy lost a golden oppor- 

 tunity. We do not know what he paid for 

 the Foster agency, but its most valuable 

 asset to him was its good will. And to a 

 •considerable extent he has, we foar. sacri- 

 ficed that good will. 



If the Foster agency had Itoen a bank- 

 rupt institution — if it bad been imalile to 

 fulfill its contracts, the case would have 

 been different. But it was not. It was. 

 when Mr. Clancy purchased it, in excel- 

 lent position to continue; and it is to be 

 presumed that Mr. Clancy paid a good 

 price for it, in order to get it out of the 

 way and to secure its 700 subscribers, rep- 

 resenting a yearly revenue of approxi- 

 mately .$.3.5,000, to accept the service of his 

 Lumbermen's Credit Association. Had he 

 treated these subscribers fairly and frankly 

 at the beginning, simply merging the Fos- 

 ter business with his own, he would have 

 found till' money he paid for the Foster 

 agency a good investment; and when com- 

 petition enters the field, as it surely will, 

 he would have been fortified against it. 



But that is Mr. Clancy's business, and 



none of ours. The position taken by the 

 Record in the matter was taken to protect 

 the interests of the lumber trade against 

 what appeared an unfair attempt to evade 

 responsibility, and to secure to the trade 

 some equivalent for the thousands of dol- 

 lars that had been advanced to the Foster 

 agency. 



SOME HARDWOOD PRICES. 



Plain-sawed oak seems to be the most 

 stable in price of any of the hardwoods. 

 When a couple of years ago, almost the 

 entire list slumped badly in price, plain 

 oak remained stead.v, and through all the 

 recent advance which has sent all other 

 prices sky rocketing, plain oak has gone 

 steadily along, some higher in price, but 

 not a great deal. 



Quarter-sawed white oak has advanced 

 in the past two years fully .$20 a thou- 

 sand in firsts and seconds, or a gain of 

 lully 40 per cent; in No. 1 common it has 

 advanced about the same amount, .$20 per 

 thousand, representing a gain of 60 2-3 per 

 cent at least; in No. 2 common it has 

 gained fully 100 per cent. 



That is a truly remarkable advance, but 

 poplar has fully equaled the record of 

 quartered oak, and cottonwood. basswooJ. 

 gum, maple, elm and all other hardwoods, 

 except plain oak, have done remarkably 

 well, but the advance in that great staple 

 plain oak has not exceeded three or four 

 dollars a thousand. 



There has been a strong demand for 

 plain oak all the time, too, but the supply 

 while not excessive, has been at all times 

 suflicient. This is a rather puzzling con- 

 dition, but may be accounted for in large 

 measure by the fact that an increasingly 

 large amount of the logs available for the 

 hardwood manufacture are not suitable 

 for quarter sawing, and are. therefore, 

 plain sawed. 



One feature affecting tlio oak situation, 

 and which will always need to be reckoned 

 with in the future, is the rapid growth of 

 the quartered oak veneer business. The 

 manufacturer of quartered oak lumber of 

 good quality must compete, in almost every 

 section of the country, with the log buyer 

 of the veneer mills in purchasing his sup- 

 ply of logs. And on that basis we assert, 

 without fear of successful contradiction, 

 that he cannot sell his lumber at much less 

 than present prices and make any money. 

 With the natural deterioration in the 

 quality of oak logs, due to the fact that the 

 oak timber supply of the country has been 

 culled for fifty years, added to the de- 

 mands of the veneer trade, wo have a con- 

 dition which amply justifies the present 

 prices of quarter-sawi'd oak, and there is 

 no reason why, except in a time of ex- 

 ceeding business depression, they should 

 ever go lower. Even at the present prices 

 there seems no prospect of overproduction, 

 in fact, we scarcely see where the neces- 

 sary amount of stock is to come from to 

 meet legitimate requirements. 



Poplar is another wood which, in spite 

 of the great gain secured in the past ftvo 

 years, is no higher than circumstances 

 warrant, especially in the upper grades 

 Poplar has never before been as high in 

 price as it should be. It has the intrinsic 

 value and there is nothing in the timber 

 supply to justify its selling below its 

 value. 



The area of poplar stumpage is rapidly 

 diminishing and the quality rapidly de- 

 teriorating. Where the manufacturer 

 tormerly got from 50 to 60 per cent of firsts 

 and seconds out of his logs, he is now 

 fortunate to get 30 to 35 per cent. 



There are uses to which good poplar is 

 put for which it is very difficult to find a 

 substitute, and while the lower grades will 

 probably fluctuate with more or less favor- 

 ing conditions, we believe that poplar lum- 

 ber above and including the No, 1 com- 

 mon grade has gone up to stay. 



CONCERNING UNIFORM INSPECTION. 



As the annual meeting of the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association is less than 

 a month away, the subjoined strong and 

 able editorial from our strong and able 

 contemporary, the Lumber Trade Journal 

 of New Orleans, should receive the care- 

 ful consideration of all members of the 

 hardwood trade. 



The movement for a unification of hard- 

 wood inspection brought the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association into exist- 

 ence, and it has received the support and 

 assistance in that work of every associa- 

 tion of hardwood lumbermen, whether of 

 manufacturers or dealers, with only one 

 exception. This exception, the Hardwood 

 Manufacturers' Association of the United 

 States, has, ever since its organization a 

 year ago, sought, for some unexplained 

 reason, to injure the National association 

 in every way it could. We are utterly at 

 a loss to understand. their attitude in this 

 matter, but the National association is big 

 enough and strong enough and unselfish 

 enough to overlook all uiis and meet any 

 attempts at reaching a basis of agreement 

 in a .spirit of conciliation. If that basis 

 cannot be reached, let the responsibility 

 rest where it belongs. 



The following editorial will repay care- 

 ful perusal: 



The approaching annual meeting of the 

 •National Hardwood Lumber Association 

 at Indianapolis will be an occasion of ex- 

 ceptional imi)ortanc(> to the hardwood in- 

 terests of the country. The Journal knows 

 nothing of what the convention will do nor 

 anything about lao special order of biisi, 

 ness. if any. is contemplated. The situa- 

 tion with rcrcrence to inspci'tion is some- 

 what complicated, unfortunately so. m 

 fact, but it is not hopelessly beyond re- 

 demption. Just now there are two sots of 

 rules in the field not exlre.jioly unlike each 

 other, but sutficiently so to cau.so some 

 confusion and more hindrance. There is 

 also some jiartisanship upon the part of 

 the votaries of contending organizations 

 that considered alone would seem to indi- 

 cate a lack of genuine loyalty to any code 



