22 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



glee of a lumberman ■who had sold him two or three cars of quar- 

 tered oak. There was some delay in inspection, and a cheek was 

 sent out about twenty days after the arrival of the cars, carrying 

 an amount which represented the net bill, less two per cent. A 

 cold and polite note came back from the lumberman, who returned 

 the check with the remark that the discount period had expired, 

 and asked that the net amount be forwarded. The buyer, slightly 

 nettled at what he considered too literal an interpretation of the 

 rules, agreed to pay the net amount; but he also decided to wait 

 the full sixty days before settling. The humorous feature of the 

 story, from his standpoint, is that the lumberman wrote a pleading 

 note a few weeks later asking him to send on the check as origi- 

 nally made out, stating that he needed the money pretty badly 

 and would agree to relinquish the amount of the discount. 



And there 's too much truth in the condition for the story to 

 sound very funny to the average lumberman. It 's pretty hard to 

 turn down the money, even though the other fellow has taken a 

 mean advantage and charged off a discount when he wasn't en- 

 titled to it; but unless the seller adheres to the terms of the bill 

 of sale he is going to be the victim of every business man who 

 makes his cigar money out of his discounts and pays his dividends 

 by hammering down material prices. 



Lumbermen have learned one thing, however, and that is that 

 buyers who don 't intend to pay cash, and who have to have three 

 or four months in which to pay for material, should not be allowed 



to wait sixty days before giving a note. When it is known that 

 the cash is not going to be forthcoming, a good rule to adhere to 

 is to secure the acceptance immediately after the arrival of th& 

 car, thus getting a negotiable instrument at once. Inasmuch as the 

 discount of the note can usually be accomplished without loss, thi» 

 arrangement is actually better from the standpoint of the seller 

 than that which permits the buyer to pay cash with the discount 

 off in ten days. 



In view of the general discussion among business men of the 

 discount question, the following comment from one of the iron 

 trade papers on the custom in the machine tool business is worth 

 quoting: 



"A large majority of machine tool builders have abandoned ali 

 cash discounts. They do practically all of their business with the 

 dealers, and the latter claim that this additional concession would 

 work to the advantage of all. The manufacturers, however, con- 

 sider that their regular discount to the dealers is amply large to 

 cover such a contingency as the requirements of customers of the 

 dealers. One important machine tool manufacturer gave up cash 

 discounts, but later adopted a compromise system of sixty days net 

 and one per cent in thirty days. This, he believes, is working most 

 advantageously." All of which goes to show that the discount is 

 a problem to those in other lines as well as in the lumber business, 

 and that it is a good idea to keep it in mind in discussing improve- 

 ments with other members of the trade. G. D. C, Jr. 



\ v;roiia^maiTOaiTOM»migiiai^^ 



-^ Connecticut }A^ood'-'Usmg Industries -Jix* 



^i 



The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station has published 

 a bulletin dealing with the wood-using industries of that state. 

 The statistics were collected and arranged by Albert H. Pierson 

 of the United States Forest Service, in co-operation with the 

 Connecticut Forest Department, under direction of S. N. Spring, 

 state forester. 



It is an exhaustive report and enters fully into the details of 

 the manufacture of wood commodities in that state. The total 

 quantity used last year was 110,000,000 feet, which is small com- 

 pared with the amount of wood used by some other states; but 

 utilization is highly specialized in Connecticut and the report is 

 valuable for the details which it shows. Fifty-eight different 

 woods are listed, white pine leading in quantity with one-fourth of 

 the total amount. Chestnut follows, but it supplied less than 

 one-third as much wood as white pine, while yellow poplar falls 

 a little below chestnut. Thirty-two of the fifty-eight woods listed 

 came wholly from outside of Connecticut, but the outside material 

 was demanded in small lots, and of the whole supply used in the 

 state, less than seventeen per cent was shipped in from outside 

 regions. 



That is an important showing for a state as old and as thickly 

 settled as Connecticut. Compared, for instance, with Michigan 

 it shows a much higher ratio of home-grown wood. Michigan 

 imports thirty-eight per cent of the wood used by its factories. 

 A considerable part of the forest in Connecticut is second growth, 

 that is, it has come on since the original mature stands were cut. 

 The average quantity of wood supplied yearly to factories by the 

 forests in the state is nearly 20,000 feet per square mile. 



The average cost of lumber bought by manufacturing plants was 

 $37.08 per 1,000 feet. That price is very high, in comparison with 

 prices paid by similar manufacturers in most other states. It is 

 higher than in Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan or Illinois. The 

 reason for the average high cost is that a rather large amount of 

 very expensive foreign woods are used. Eight of them exceeded 

 $100 a thousand feet, and five of these averaged more than $200. 

 The most expensive was teak at $287.50. The costliest American 

 wood was black walnut at $89.63, the cheapest hemlock at $14.08. 

 These prices are averages for the whole state. Some of the indus- 

 tries paid more, some less. 



Twenty-six wood-using industries are listed in Connecticut. The 

 largest quantity of material is used by box makers, the smallest 

 by the manufacturers of butchers' blocks. The most important 

 industries, in the order named, are: Boxes and crates, planing mill 

 products; sash, doors, blinds and general millwork considered as 

 one industry; musical instruments, ships and boats, clocks, vehicles, 

 carpenters' tools, and woodenware. Some of the minor industries 

 are the following: Laundry appliances, sporting and athletic goods, 

 tanks, cigar boxes, printing materials, furniture, patterns, and fire- 

 arms. The highest average prices for wood were paid as follows: 

 The makers of carpteners' tools $68.47, firearms $67.11, patterns 

 $65.73, cigar boxes $60.04. The lowest average prices were paid 

 by boxes $21.11, agricultural implements $21.89, sporting and ath- 

 letic goods $22.68, and woodenware $24.55. 



The manufacture of boxes and crates is the leading industry in 

 all the New England states for which statistics have been col- 

 lected, that is, in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and 

 Connecticut. The reason for this is that extensive manufacturing 

 is carried on in those states, and the product calls for shipping 

 boxes. In all the states named the prevailing wood for boxes is 

 white pine. Of the 24,411,000 feet of lumber used for boxes in 

 Connecticut, nearly 17,000,000 feet were white pine — more than 

 two-thirds of all. Three-fourths of it grew outside the state. The 

 wood next in importance was spruce, followed by tupelo and black 

 gum. The state supplied about one-fifth of the box material de- 

 manded by its manufacturers. About 3,500,000 feet came from 

 south of the Potomac river. Twenty-one woods were listed for 

 boxes, the hardwoods being sycamore, soft maple, red oak, hickory, 

 hard maple, ash, rock or cork elm, white or soft elm, chestnut, 

 basswood, yellow poplar or whitewood, black gum, and tupelo. 



Many of the boxes in Connecticut are not the product of com- 

 mercial box factories, but are made by manufacturers of various 

 kinds of merchandise who make their own shipping boxes, but 

 do not sell boxes to others. Hickory is an unusual wood for box 

 making, and the quantity reported — 25,000 feet — was probably used 

 for dowels or other appliances for locking the corners of boxes 

 or crates. 



Planing mill products constitute the second largest wood-using 

 industry in Connecticut. The principal commodities included are 



