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A group of )iai'ci\vood lumbermen, largely composed of wholesalers, 

 were discussing recently some of the changes in the business which 

 have been wrought with the passing of the years. Most of them were 

 intimately acquainted with the hardwood producing sections of the 

 Central South, and easily recalled the time, not so far distant, when 

 more than half of the lumber offered on the hardwood markets was 

 made up of the product of the so-called ' ' country mills. ' ' 



' ' How much limiber do you suppose the little fellows put out now, 

 compared with the total?" inquired a newcomer in the trade, who 

 had listened to the talk with keen interest. 



"Not more than twenty per cent, if that," said one of the 

 veterans. The others agreed with him, and the inquirer made a 

 mental note of the fact, presented to him for the first time, that the 

 country mill, as a factor in the commercial situation, is rapidly dis- 

 appearing. The figures quoted are the estimates of practical men 

 based on their own experience in the handling of hardwoods, and 

 are not the result of a statistical investigation. Nevertheless, it is 

 fairly safe to assume that the proportion is just about as indicated. 



The small portable mill, with a boiler, circular saw and little 

 other equipment, is not going into the junk-pile, by any means; it is 

 still working liere and there, but it hasn't nearly as much material 

 to work with as it used to have. In Kentucky and Tennessee the 

 timber is getting jjretty scattered, and in the districts further south 

 the timber is being manufactured at the big, substantial mills where 

 band-saws predominate. 



It is generally agreed that the character of lumber manufactured 

 by the band-mill is an improvement over the circular-sawed stock 

 of the country mill, though many jobbers of hardwoods who handle 

 the output of the latter contend that in many respects the little 

 fellow has it on his larger competitor. For one thing, they argue, the 

 absence of edgers and trimm'ers at the country mill means that the 

 buyer gets the advantage of width and length which is lost when 

 the manufacturer having those facilities cuts the stock with refer- 

 ence to grade. 



On the other hand, the argument is very properly made tliat this 

 apparent advantage is in fact none at all, since the buyer in order 

 to make use of such stock, must necessarily trim off the bark and 

 equalize the thickness, so that by the time he has added labor and 

 handling charges to the lumber he is no better off than he would 

 have been if he had bought the band-mill 's even, well manufactured 

 stock. 



This is not to say that the circular saw is not capable of manu- 

 facturing good lumber. On tlie contrary, if such a saw is in good 

 condition and is properly handled, the lumber turned out of it may 

 be as perfect as the product of any other type of mill. But under 

 the conditions which prevail in most cases, where the millman does 

 custom sawing for the timber owners of his community, and bangs 

 his equipment here and there, setting it up in the woods wherever 

 he can get a customer, it is practically impossible to keep it going 

 in the best possible fashion, and while it makes lumber, it is just 

 about lumber and little else. 



Indicating the incompleteness of the operation, many band-mill 

 operators which purchase the product of the country mills in their 

 vicinity make a practice of going over this stock and sorting out the 

 boards which should have been edged or trimmed or equalized, and 

 sending them over to the mill for re-working. This results in better 

 lumber for the manufacturer's purpose being produced, and while it 

 raises the grade and thereby enables the lumberman to market it to 

 better advantage, he merely takes a legitimate profit growing out 

 of his possession of complete facilities for producing lumber. It is 

 therefore likely that the consumer who buys country stock expecting 

 to make a big economy merely because he is likely to get longer and 

 wider boards, will probably have to make up for it in the labor ex- 

 ]iense which is necessary to put it into the best possible condition. 



The transfer of the balance of power, so to speak, from the numer- ' 

 ous small millmen to large interests controlling modern, permanent 



— so- 



und well-equipped m'ills, has meaut more to tlie industry and to the 

 consuming trades tlian merely a change of control. It has made 

 possible the production of better lumber and the practice of econ- 

 omies which were entirely out of the range of possibilities with the 

 small mill in possession of the field for the most part. 



Take for instance the matter of applying industrial chemistry 

 to the utilization of the waste products of the hardwood mill. Atten- 

 tion has been called from, time to time to the exiiloits in the pine 

 field, where paper, alcohol, acetic acid and other valuable products 

 have .been evolved from the unpromising base of shavings, slabs 

 and sawdust. The hardwood mills are now installing burners and 

 expensive conveying systems for moving their waste; the problem is 

 sunply how to get rid of it, and not how to make money out of it. 

 These big mills have not yet taken advantage of their opportunities, 

 but are seizing upon the first method that oifers itself. They are 

 big enough and strong enough financially, however, to undertake 

 a little research work in. this direction, by means of which to find 

 an outlet for their waste which will enable them to transfer it 

 from the expense to the profit account and change it from a lia- 

 bility into an asset. 



This would seem to be one of the greatest possible benefits Ihat 

 nray come from the production of the major portion of the hardwood 

 output by large mills backed by strong interests, instead of by 

 peripatetic country mills working chiefly on a custom basis and 

 unable to complete the manufacture of the lumber, as judged by 

 present-day standards, much less make use of the waste created in 

 their operations. 



Then, of course, the production of dimension stock is possible in 

 the big mill, whereas it is out of the question at the country plant. 

 As this is now regarded as a department of the hardwood business 

 offering the greatest possibilities from the general standpoint of 

 economy iu the use of wood, and also as judged by standards of in- 

 dividual profit and convenience, making it possible to handle an in- 

 creased percentage of the output on this basis it must be regarded as 

 a step in the right direction. 



The erection of the big mill might have been thought to be the 

 knell of the jobber who formerly had received most of the output 

 of the country mills of his district. Apparenth', this has not hap- 

 jieued; though possibly the result has been to turn the jobber into a 

 manufacturer by making it worth while . for him to put up his own 

 miU, and the manufacturer into a jobber by suggesting the purchase 

 of the lumber cut at the country mills still remaining. As much 

 lumber as ever is passing through the hands of middlemen, it seems, so 

 that the existence of the system which has been railed at so much 

 by the theorists in the field of political economy of late is probably 

 not endangered. 



A feature of the situation as it affects the country mills has been 

 referred to by wholesalers buying from them. For a long while, 

 with a large part of the hardwood country forested, the population 

 was rather scanty and the local consumption of wood relatively small. 

 Today, with most of the country devoted to farming and only an 

 occasional strip of woodland left, the demands of the immediate 

 vicinity of the mill are suificient to take care of a large percentage 

 of the production. This is especially true of low-grade material, 

 which goes into the manufacture of barns and buildings of all kinds. 

 The local millman can get more for his low-grade stuff, used in 

 this way, than from the jobber, who consequently buys very little 

 except firsts and seconds and No. 1 common, whereas he used to 

 take the lumber either log run or contract for the entire output on 

 a basis of grades. 



The development of agricultural and community interests in the 

 hardwood producing districts may account in part for the shortage 

 of low grades which has been noted during the past few years, and 

 which has resulted in advances in prices on this character of stock 

 all the way through the hardwood stock list. While this affects the 

 country mills chiefly, the big mills are in somewhat similar cireum- 



