30 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



contrasts seen in furniture and finish will be found, upon examina- 

 tion, to be due to mistakes of that kind. 



Many high-grade veneers owe their chief value to the practicability 

 of matching one piece with another. Veneers are thin, and several 

 sheets with practically the same grain or figure are cut from a log. 

 The same burl, crotch, or wave shows in all. The similar sheets are 

 kept together and sold together. The manufacturer can produce 

 perfect matches, and his panels or tops are artistic and harmonious. 

 Sometimes a single log of specially fine-figured mahogany or Cir- 

 cassian walnut may produce enough p-inels to finish a Pullman car, 



a room, or even a house, and all the panels may lie worked out with 

 a harmonious arrangement of figure. 



Unfortunately, all manufacturers , are not so careful with their 

 combinations. They miss opportunities to produce good effects. 

 Bad matching is sometimes done without excuse. White wood is 

 combined with dark wood, when there is no need for it ; coarse grain 

 with fine grain ; wide rings with narrow rings ; edge grain with 

 quarter-sawed; anything of the proper size and shape may go iu. 

 These are lost opportunities, and the man who loses opportunities 

 needlessly will soon begin to lose trade. 



' C'g^^asia'MkiJimiBirotiaki^l^^ 



Where is the lumberman who will not extend himself to the limit 

 when he gets an inquiry terminating with a paragraph like this: 



' ' We expect to be in the market for several hundred thousand feet 

 of this material ; and if you can give us what we want as to price and 

 grade in the first car, we shall be ready to close with you for the 

 remainder. ' ' 



That kind of statement is as much of an attraction to the average 

 hardwood man as the storied Lorelei was to the fishermen of the 

 Ehine. And he makes Just as strong efforts to land the order for the 

 big block of stock as the fishermen did to reach the side of the beauti- 

 ful maiden. The results in both instances are not what would ordi- 

 narily be called successful. 



When an inquiry suggesting that the buyer is prepared to purchase 

 heavily in the immediate future comes in, the experienced dealer usu- 

 ally takes the information with a couple of bags of salt. He has 

 probably had experience in this direction before, and knows that he 

 seldom lands the huge contract to which veiled reference is made by 

 the buyer. But he is a rara avis if he can restrain his desire to make 

 a play for the business, and to fix up a car that is calculated to bring 

 home the bacon, if there is really any business to be secured. 



A quotation is usually made on the "sample car" which is lower 

 than would be offered if merely that single shipment were under con- 

 sideration; and the lumberman frequently goes out of his way to see 

 that widths, lengths and grade are all a little better than necessary. 

 In fact, the car is "salted," using the term iu its better sense, and 

 the consumer who receives it is sure to be pleased with its contents. 



But does this presentation of lumber par excellence produce a wire 

 to the effect that eight or ten more cars of the same kind may be sent 

 forward'? Hardly; for the purchaser who is wise enough to use the 

 suggestion for the effect it has on the quality of the lumber is likewise 

 shrewd enough to realize that, having sent one car of that kind, the 

 lumberman will expect to get his regular profit out of the others. 

 Hence the buyer turns to someone else and asks that a sample of his 

 lumber be sent, and that if it is found desirable as to grade and 

 dimensions, a big order covering the season's requirements of the 

 factory will be placed. 



Everybody realizes that a fairly large number of clever consumers 

 are thus showing themselves to be shrewder bargainers than the lum- 

 bermen, and yet a lot of hardwood men continue to be taken in. They 

 chase after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and when they 

 get there they find just what might have been predicted — nothing. It 

 must be admitted, too, that the purchaser of lumber who is shrewd 

 enough to get better lumber than the money he pays justifies is en- 

 titled to all that he receives, for, in the language of the baseball 

 players, he "outguessed the batter." When a lumberman ships a 

 "sample car" which is "salted" with better lumber than would go 

 into an average car of this kind, he is frankly holding it out as a 

 bait; and if the buyer were really to place the order for the additional 

 lumber, it is a moral certainty that the additional shipments would not 

 and could not be up to the standard set by the first car. 



They would be up to grade and correct in measurement, of course; 

 but not necessarily with the ' ' trimmings ' ' in the way of extra 

 lengths and widths added to create the impression that the car con- 

 tained particularly desirable stock. Hence, while the purchaser would 



get his money 's worth, he would not get more than his money 's 

 worth, as in the case of the first car. The argument of the lumber- 

 man, of course, is that the initial ear is a kind of advertisement, and 

 that he is spending a little money on his ad in order to secure a 

 favorable impression that will result in more orders. 



The same kind of proposition is frequently met with in the panel 

 business, when consumers attempt to get quotations on small lots of 

 built-up stock at the same rate as though a heavy order were to be 

 placed, pleading that if the first shipment is satisfactory, the order 

 for the additional material will be given. And cases are reported of 

 panel men being so anxious to get the prospective big business that 

 they accept little or no profit on the first job that goes through the 

 factory. They ought not be disappointed if the consumer fails to 

 produce the big lot, for in a good many cases he doesn 't need more 

 than was indicated by his "sample" order, and merely used the 

 promise of the big trade, to be forthcoming a little later, to get a 

 better price and possibly better panels than he could have secured 

 otherwise. 



The fallacy of the whole proposition lies in the effort of the lum- 

 berman or the panel manufacturer to do more for the new customer 

 than he would do for the old. He is willing to ship out a better ear 

 of lumber to the man who he thinks may buy a big lot of lumber 

 from him if that car is good, than to merit continued patronage from 

 those to whom he has shipped heretofore by giving occasionally bet- 

 ter stock than is absolutely necessary. Instead of "skinning" a car 

 down to the lowest possible level as to grade and sizes, why not 

 spend a little of the money that goes to the peripatetic buyer of 

 "sample cars" in creating good-will on the part of those who are 

 known to be regular and constant buyers? 



Attention has been called before to the lack of the permanence of 

 lumber business, and to the fact that too few lumbermen have cus- 

 tomers who can be counted on to buy their supplies from them, month 

 in and month out. If this is the case, as .the experience of most 

 members of the trade suggests, there must be a reason, and possibly 

 it is found in the fact that the lumberman seldom makes himself 

 worthy of the constant and uninterrupted patronage which he would 

 like to have. If he studies the needs of his customer; tells him 

 frankly when he ships lumber that isn 't as dry as it might have been ; ' 

 never rushes a car of stock out a couple of weeks ahead of the date 

 specified, and in other ways seeks to give his customer an even break 

 all along the line, and occasionally the better part of the bargain, 

 there will be less necessity for trying to dig up new connections 

 which present themselves with suggestions as to the possibility of 

 buying a sample car. 



There is hardly a line of business in which regular connections are 

 as little developed as in the lumber trade. Occasionally one finds a 

 consumer buying on contract; but the bulk of the business is handled 

 in single car orders picked up by canvassing the field and going after 

 everything that offers. Possibly on account of the narrow margin of 

 profit involved and the fact that prices are not standard, and a mat- 

 ter of official market quotations, few buyers would be willing to do 

 business with one house exclusively; but it is certain that an effort 

 in the direction of developing permanent patronage by getting in a 

 position to deserve it is sure to have some results. G. D. ('.. .Tr. 



