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27 



istics. They must be approached ia . different,- ,^ays. ^A Bostonian 

 must be approached from one standpoint; EtJfew Yorker from ianother, 

 and so on. Personal contact with his community tells that wholesaler 

 just how to do it — and he sells the oak to those who use it. Sure, 

 it 's psychology if you want to call it that. I 'd call it specialization. 



Consumers know the wholesaler and take his description any way 

 he puts it. I'd like to gamble that half the letters you write to con- 

 sumers, Mr. Millman, do not bring results. Not because they are 

 unbusinesslike but because you have not appealed to the buyer in the 

 right way. Yes, the wholesaler reads every word of your letters with 

 interest; no matter how you put it, he understands you, for he under- 

 stands mUl conditions, etc. Furthermore, it is to his interest to sell 

 all he can and the more selling and interest-creating points he can get 

 the more stock he will sell. For every ear you sell to a consumer you . 

 could sell five to the wholesaler in that section — and without half 

 trying. 



Now can you, Mr. Eemanufacturer, afford' to buy your lumber log- 

 run for your work? Eliminate the middleman or jobber and in most 

 cases you will have to. Why? Well, suppose you must have a grade 

 of No. 1 common for your work. Most of -the wholesalers today, in 

 taking the cut of a mill, buy the lumber log-run and have it graded 

 out, giving you, for instance, the No. 1 common and arranging for 

 another to take the Is and 2s and still another consumer to take the 

 No. 2 common. Even now, when lumber is scarce, some of you have 

 to take some No. 1 common in with your Is and 2s. In the above case 

 what will you do with the No. 2 common which is too poor for your 

 work or the Is and 2s which would make your product so high in 

 price as to lose business? Millmen will take exception to the above 

 statement. They say that they can find out the trade for each grade 

 and kind of wood. But how about the enormous expense of going all 

 over, finding out this trade, making contracts (which cannot always 



be done at the first or even second visits, etc.) and then perhaps ^not 

 getting it or not being able to keep it? i 



Again, if the consumer has been dealing only with a mill and ik is 

 out of the stock, where does he look? To the wholesaler. The con- 

 sumer knows that the middleman is in touch with many mills and at 

 once the stock he wants can be had. And after one experience of this 

 kind he is pretty likely to stick to the wholesaler. 



Do you realize that the wholesaler keeps prices where they ought 

 to be? Do you realize that there would be from five dollars' to ten 

 dollars a thousand difference in price if he were not on the ground? 

 Do you ever realize that an advance by the mills is general? 



The wholesaler, the lumber magnate, the lumber baron, the reaper 

 of immense profits as some of our worthy (?) government officials 

 chose to call him through ignorance is the most important factor 

 in every community. He is firmly entrenched in his position and his 

 fortifications are being strengthened every day. He cannot be dis- 

 lodged because he is necessary. He is just as important to the trade 

 channel as the telephone central is to the telejihone exchange. Neither 

 can be done away with without chaos. The wholesaler is also the 

 judge and sometimes dictator of values. 



Some day the millenium will come. That is the day when each 

 manufacturer will appoint a wholesaler in his respective market as his 

 representative; when the milhnan realizes that this is the lowest sales 

 cost per thousand feet; when the millman will refer all inquiries for 

 quotation to tho wholesaler in his section; when the selling price of 

 each grade and thickness is approximately the same; when the mill- 

 man will spend his entire tinie manufacturing and making his product 

 more salable and of better vulue; when specific details are furnished 

 the wholesaler by the millman va. answer toi inqjiiries, and when there 

 will be one set of inspection rules. That is the day the wholesaler 

 will come into his own. 



\; rosmaitr>^ii^ttw ^oti^iii<sitTOira^^ 



Every user of hickory is familiar with the dark reddish brown or 

 black streaks and spots which are so common in the wood. These 

 diseolorations are due to the -.vork of birds — sapsuckers — which drill 

 through the bark and into tiie young wood in search of sap, which 

 furnishes a considerable proportion of their food. Sapsuckers by no 

 means confine their attentions to hickory; on the contrary, they are 

 quite promiscuous in tlieir choice, so thai hardly a species of tree is 

 immune. In no case, however, is the resultant damage greater than 

 in the hickory, not so nmch on account of the mechanical injury as 

 from the consequent discoloration and blemishing of the wood. 



The sapsuckers are a distinctly marked group of woodpeckers and 

 are limited to three species. They do not dig into a tree to get out 

 insects as is the case with the true woodpeckers, of which there are 

 twenty-one species in the country, but to drink the sap and eat bits of 

 the inner bark and soft cambium layer. The cambium is the formative 

 tissue of the tree and lies just beneath the bark. It is by division of 

 its cells that wood is formed and any injury to it appears later as a 

 defect in the wood. 



The true woodpeckers do some damage to tiaiber, but since their 

 borings are for the purpose of locating insects and their larvse and 

 eggs, the good they do far outweighs the evil. The sapsuckers, ou the 

 other iiand, haven't the right kind of tongues for pulling out insects, 

 though they balance their vegetarian diet with a considerable quan- 

 tity of ants. They appear to be birds with few redeeming features. 



The results of sapsucker attacks on trees are so uniform as easily 

 I to be distinguished from the work of other woodpeckers. The holes 

 I of the former are drilled clear through the bark and cambium often 

 into the wood, and generally are arranged in rings or partial rings 

 around the trunk, though often in rows up and down. When one finds 

 deeply cut holes arranged with such regularity he may be sure they 

 were made by sapsuckers. 



While in many trees, particularly conifers, the holes made by the 

 birds go only to the sap-wood, in maple and hickory, which furnish at 



certain times of the year a profuse flow of sweet sap through the 

 sap-wood, the outer ring of wood is usually punctured. This hole cuts 

 off the flow of sap and a brown or black streak (known as iron 

 streak) from one-eighth to three-eighths inch wide extends from a few 

 inches to several feet above and below the wound along the line of the 

 vessels affected. This discoloration is due to oxidation and other 

 chemical changes in the substances in the wood, and appears to have 

 no serious effect on the strength and other mechanical properties of 

 the timber. It is a blemish and materially reduces the grade and 

 market value of the material. 



The damage is not confined to the streak. The puncture in the sap- 

 wood means a break in the continuity of the fibers, a very undesirable 

 defect in wood prized for its great toughness and resilience. More- 

 over, the attempt of the tree to heal the wounds produces in each 

 hole a small knot-like projection. These affect materially the smooth 

 working of Ihe wood into handles because of the tendency of the 

 grain to rough up and splinter in the immediate vicinity of the 

 former injury. 



The total damage done by sapsuckers is immense and is estimated 

 to amount to at least ten per cent for the entire United States, rising 

 in some localities to thirty per cent. The money value of this loss 

 amounts to about $600,000 per year, not counting the loss sustained 

 by the producer or dealer on the cut timber graded out by the manu- 

 facturers' requirements in regard to bird pecks. 



That such loss should occur is especially unfortunate in the case of 

 hickory, which fills a place for which it seems there is no substitute. 

 No other commercial wood combines to so great a degree strength, 

 stiffness, toughness and resilience. With the supply in danger of 

 exhaustion every effort should be made to prevent unnecessary waste. 

 Perhaps some time it will become necessary to get rid of the birds, 

 but only when man has eliminated the much greater sources of waste 

 due to his own carelessness and inefBciency can he claim any real 

 grievance against his feathered neighbors. S. J. R. 



