i8 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



October 23, 1910 



As to walnut, there is little to be said except tliat it is growing 

 stronger than ever. The fact that walnut is holding up vigorously in 

 the face of decreased use for gunstoeks (orders are not so numerous 

 nor so generous as they were), suggests that those who have been 

 attributing walnut's rapid rise to the gunstock business alone should 

 be convinced, now, that it has won a new recognition on its merits 

 alone. 



The mahogany situation is encouraging mainly from a consumption 

 standpoint, as there is still great difficulty in getting the necessary 

 logs. Large mahogany companies of this country are depending more 

 and more on their own means of securing log supplies, but of course 

 this metliod cannot be adopted by everybody all at once. Authentic 

 advices from the big mahogany centers in England show a meager 

 supply and practically no replenishment. So it is apparent that in the 

 main ttie principal dependence for mahogany logs is on the domes- 

 tically owned means of transportation. 



Going down the list there is scarcely a wood wliich is not a better 

 property today than it was a month ago, and which doesn't give 

 promise of being in even a better position a month or two months from. 

 now than it is today. 



A careful summary of all conditions certainly gives ample justifica- 

 tion for Babson's clear-cut statement that lumber is right now one of 

 the few bargains in the commodity markets of the United States. 



The Cover Picture 



WHITE "WATER AND PLENTY OF SHADE cast by overhang- 

 ing trees are conditions surrounding the ideal trout stream. 

 The brook trout avoids sunshine when it can. It may endure bright 

 light for a while but never does so willingly. Sunlight heats the 

 water, and warm water is not to the trout's liking. 



The cover picture carried with this number of H.^rdwodd Record 

 shows a typical trout stream. It is not one of the many which con- 

 tained no trout until the fish commissioner placed them there ; but 

 it was stocked in a natural way and so long ago that the human race 

 had no representative in that region when the first speckled trout 

 leaped to catch its first fly in those babbling waters. During untold 

 generations the savage Indian wound along those rocky banks and 

 caught trout with snares made of twisted wolf hairs, or with liooks 

 fashioned from the "wish-bones'" of quails. 



The stream has its course among the Appalachian ranges of moun- 

 tains near the boundary line between Tennessee and North Carolina. 

 The Indian departed from that region long ago, but the torrent roars 

 along its rocky channel the same as during the redman's sojourn 

 there. Civilization has neither beautified nor destroyed. But it is 

 almost too much to hope that the same condition will continue. The 

 lumberman has been making surveys in the region drained by that 

 stream, and what is likely to follow is well known. 



Lumbermen do not wilfully destroy trout streams, but they do it 

 carelessly or because they think they cannot log the region without 

 doing so. The shade is cut away. The channel is dammed and clut- 

 tered up with tree tops, limbs and brush. Swampers who clear the 

 way for the loggers throw the refuse into the creek because it is the 

 easiest thing to do. Unsightly drifts and jams result; backwater 

 ereates pools and eddies which stagnate in the sun, and the trout 

 cannot stand it. Fortunate it is if in addition to all this, a sawmill 

 is not located in such a situation that the sawdust is dumped into the 

 creek, thereby completing the destruction of the fish. Sawdust gets 

 in their gills ami kills them; while tannin from the wood poisons 

 the water and kills even the crawfiish and hclgramites. Most states 

 now prohibit the dumping of sawdust into running streams. 



The government has been buying land along such streams as this 

 in the southern Appalachians, and the land is being organized into 

 national forests. The purchases thus far have mostly been of cut- 

 over land where lumbermen have slashed and passed on. Such land, 

 when properly eared for, will produce a new forest ; and if the gov- 

 ernment continues to own it, tlie trout streams will never again be 

 destroyed by drift, trash, sawdust and tannin. The timl)er wUl be 

 cut when of proper size, but the streams will be kept clear. The gov- 

 ernment will see to it that cutting is done in a way that will keep the 

 streams open and clean. 



It is to be regretted that the government has very little money with 

 which to buy more land in the southern Appalachians. The "pork 

 barrel" has taken the money that ought to be used in buying land 

 along just such streams as are represented in the cover picture. 

 Money is appropriated to build a postoffice in some obscure town. 

 The same sum would suffice to buy the whole drainage basin of a 

 fine mountain stream, and the investment would pay during all time. 



Effect of Conditions on Lumber Markets 



A CERTAIN LARGE CONSUMING CENTER is said to be using 

 unusual quantities of a certain hardwood, where its usual 

 consumption is about equally divided between this and another 

 competing wood, because the shipping conditions from the territory 

 of the less fortunate species had become very unsatisfactory, due to 

 car shortage. This suggests that demand is not always governed 

 by the character of the product, but that where two products will 

 serve equally well, and one can be secured more readily than the 

 other, supply rather than well-tabulated talking points on quality 

 will sell the goods. 



It also suggests a condition that should not exist, a condition 

 resulting from lack of concerted demand by the lumberman that it, 

 the second largest industry in the country, be given consistent con- 

 sideration in the matter of available freight cars. When, because 

 some other commodity than lumber is given preference in cars sup- 

 plied, some species of lumber is definitely injured in its markets, 

 it is time that the trade merchandizing that particular lumber demand 

 the consideration which its product is entitled to. 



Gum lumber has lost many a sale in the last few months directly 

 on account of the impossibility of getting enough cars to ship the 

 product. In many eases gum customers have been permanently 

 diverted to other woods. It is obvious that the unfair railroad 

 practice is not aimed against gum or any other specific kind of 

 wood, but that lumber in general is as usual being made to play 

 second fiddle. However, if there is not cause in this particular 

 suggestion for definite, legal results, there surely is cause for the 

 demand for a new way of assigning cars that will prevent further 

 damage in the future. 



Safety a Matter of Education — Not Appliances 



THE ONE BIG POINT OF NATIONAL INTEREST developed 

 at the National Safety Council at Detroit last week was that 

 the minimizing of hazard in industrial plants and outside operations 

 depends ninety per cent upon the human clement and ten per cent on 

 modern safety appliances. The value of and absolute necessity for the 

 safeguarding of hazardous machines and tools was not in any way 

 minimized, but the growing realization of the necessity for making 

 carefulness a matter of second nature with workmen under all condi- 

 tions was given the prominent jilace in the sessions. 



One definite result of the wide propaganda on safety apjiliances 

 has been that the average operator, after equipping his plant with all 

 facilities for safeguarding his machines, came to feel that he had 

 done everything possible to minimize the dangers under which his 

 employes worked. He purposely blinded himself to the humanitarian 

 side, feeling that as he had ilone all that he could do, in a mechan- 

 ical way, it was up to the workmen to protect themselves. 



The unfairness of this position was the theme of the safety council. 

 The laboring man would not' be an employee were he able to think 

 for liimself as effectively as his em|iloycr can and should think 

 for him. Therefore, it is just as mucli tlie employer's duty to make 

 persistent effort to build a ' ' safety guard ' ' of carefulness around the 

 minds of the worker as it is to screen in the moving fly wheel or ]int 

 an automatic guard over tlie rip saw. 



The export embargo instituted by the British government has been 

 further extended since the last ])ublication on this subject by H.\rd- 

 WOOD Record by prohibiting the export of rock elm. This wood is 

 put into Class A, which means that its Osjiortation is prohibited to 

 all destinations excejit under license. 



This is the only alteration in the ])rohibitions since the publication 

 of the detailed statement in Hardwood Recokd of September 10. 



