HARDWOOD RECORD 



II 



and venerable appearance would indicate to 

 the observer that the trees now in existence, 

 fringing the lower Atlantic and Gulf coasts, 

 are of great age. No long timber can be 

 secured from either trunk or branches, and 

 therefore its chief use in tlic jiast and its 



GIANT ROOTS OF LIVE OAK EXPOSED BY 

 WASHING OF SURF. 



occasional present employment lies entirely in 

 tlie form of crooks for ship knees and com- 



pass timbers. The heart of the present ma- 

 ture growth is usually defective. 



The wood is so highly esteemed for ship 

 building purposes that in 1799 the govern- 

 ment expended $200,000 in the purchase of 

 southern lands on which live oak timber was 

 growing, for the purpose of affording a sup- 

 ply suitable for the construction of ships for 

 the navy. The use of iron and steel in mod- 

 ern ship building, having so greatly dimin- 

 ished the call for oak timber, the government, 

 by an act approved by Congress in February, 

 1S95, opened for entry aud occupation by the 

 (lublic large tracts of this wooded land, held 

 for so many years in the interest of the navy. 



The live oak is generally draped with fan- 

 tastic festoons of Spanish moss, and thus 

 adorned, it is one of the most picturesque ob- 

 jects seen in the entire southland. In general 

 appearance the tree very strongly resembles 

 the famous giant oaks of England, from which 

 the magnificently figured veneers often seen 

 in the smoking rooms of Pullman cars and in 

 the interior finish of some of New York's 

 finest business buildings, are obtained. The 

 writer is not aware that any attempt has ever 

 been made to place the short, giant bodies of 



live oaks on the market in the form of 

 veneers, but it is possible that through the 

 coloring engendered by hyperniaturity, as is 



FOLIAGE AND FRUIT OP LIVE OAK. 



the case with English oak, the wood might 

 constitute a verj- attractive veneer material. 



Incident and Observation on a Southern Trip. 



One night's journey on the New Orleans 

 Limited of the Illinois Central railroad takes 

 one the 527 miles from Chicago to Memphis, 

 the chief hardwood manufacturing center of 

 the United States. Statistics of approximate 

 accuracy give Memphis the credit of produc- 

 ing in its score of sawmills 72,000,000 feet of 

 hardwoods annually, and Memphis houses pro- 

 duce at their mills in Arkansas, Missouri, 

 Tennessee and Mississippi about 175,000,000 

 feet each year. Memphis jobbers, exclusive of 

 mill owners, handle well toward 40,000,000 

 feet additional, while the manufacturing and 

 jobbing interests buy and ship direct from 

 mills to their trade, well toward another 

 100,000,000 feet. Thus the hardwood trade 

 of Memphis is responsible for the manufac- 

 turing and marketing of almost 400,000,000 

 feet of hardwoods each year. Memphis is 

 celebrated as being the center of the oak, red 

 gum and cottonwood manufacturing industry, 

 and incidentally makes and markets large 

 quantities of ash, ejijress, hickory and a va- 

 riety of other woods. 



Memphis manufacturers and dealers are as 

 enterprising a crowd of lumbermen as exists 

 in the United States. Generally speaking, 

 they know their business aud know it well. 

 By dint of experience and approved methods, 

 they have learned better than any other com- 

 munity of lumbermen, the finesse of putting 

 red gum lumber upon the market in a well 

 manufactured, well seasoned and thoroughly 

 satisfactory shape. To Memphis should go 

 the credit of making a high-class commercial 

 commodity of the gums. 



The market is especially noted for the great 

 quantity of thin lumber it produces. Without 

 doubt it manufactures more half and three- 

 quarter inch stock in hardwoods than half of 



all the other mills in the country. Again, 

 Memphis is celebrated for the large quantity 

 of stock it puts into the export trade ; nearly 

 every concern in that market either itself 

 does a large volume of business abroad, or 

 has foreign connections that handle its out- 

 put. 



* it * ^ * 



There are a number of good and well han- 

 dled sawmills at Memphis. It is rare indeed 

 to see logs, manufactured with such uicety 

 of detail as is practiced in these mills. The 

 writer spent several hours a few days ago in 

 company with True Bennett of the Bennett 

 Hardwood Lumber Company in a visit to his 

 sawmill and lumber yards. If there ever was 

 a man who knew the exact nicety of sawing 

 hardwoods and expert ways of seasoning his 

 stock, it is Mr. Bennett. No advantageous 

 detail of production or marketing escapes his 

 notice. Other sawmill men who handle their 

 stock with great finesse are I. M. Darnell & 

 Son Company, E. J. Darnell, Inc., Eusse & 

 Burgess, and E. E. : Taeuzer & Co., Inc. As 

 a matter of fact noi one in the market manu- 

 factures hardwoods in a way that could be 

 criticized. One of the new and fine mills in 

 Memphis that is turning out stock in beautiful 

 shape is the Green Eiver Lumber Company, 

 Inc. Among the allied concerns of the indus- 

 try is the magnificent new flooring plant of 

 the Arthur Hardwood Flooring Company near- 

 ing completion, which is one of the finest 

 plants ever constructed. Its product will con- 

 sist entirely of polished oak flooring. 



* » * # * 



A man who is "cutting considerable ice" 

 in the Memphis market is Col. Maxwell Sond- 

 heimer (once known as- Max Sondheimer of 

 Chicago), president of the E. Sondheimer 

 Company. The Colonel has endeared himself 



to all elements of the trade in Memphis by 

 his generosity and enterprise, and now fully 

 divides honors for popularity in that com- 

 munity with tall, handsome, good-natured Jess 

 Thompson of the wholesale house, the J. W. 

 Thompson Lumber Company. Colonel Sond- 

 heimer has been instrumental in establishing 

 at Memphis a restaurant where both ladies 

 and gentlemen dine off the best in the land, 

 cooked in the most expert fashion, and served 

 in a way that appeals to the most critical 

 palate. A caterer has been secured from Chi- 

 cago who knows the best methods prevailing 

 in high-class restaurants, and it goes without 

 saying that the new Sondheimer refectory will 

 be a monumental success. 



# * * ;^ * 



The Cottonwood' trade has its real commer- 

 cial center at Memphis. Here is located one 

 of the principal otfices of the Paepcke-Leicht 

 Lumber Company, in charge of E. A. Lang; 

 the principal offices of the Three States Lum- 

 ber Company and the W. E. Smith Lumber 

 Company, the Gilchrist enterprises are both in 

 charge of popular ' ' Billy ' ' Smith. Memphis 

 is also the seat of the operations of the great 

 Anderson-Tully Company which is not only a 

 large handler of cottonwood, but cuts an im- 

 mense quantity of the material into boxes and 

 shooks. Memphis is also the real sales head- 

 quarters of Chapman & Dewey of Marked 

 Tree, Ark., the great cottonwood producers, 

 as well as of E. E. Lee Wilson of Wilson, 

 Ark., another man very prominent in the cot- 

 tonwood trade. Manager H. E. Bacon of the 

 Bacon-Nolan Hardwood Company, whose tim- 

 ber holdings are in Quitman county, Missis- 

 sippi, and the Lamb Hardwood Lumber Com- 

 pany, which has an immense tract of timber 

 in Tallahatchee county, Mississippi, is_ just 

 getting business shaped away for his great en- 



