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HARDWOOD RECORD 



December 10, 1916 



be followed as closely as possible. As the ultimate object is to per- 

 petuate the industry, obviously the coming generation must be con- 

 sidered with the present generation. As the child's mind is more 

 susceptible to impression than the adult's, the surest way of gaining 

 a broadened view for lumber is to educate those who now are children 

 and who will be the future purchasers. If the children today are 

 taught a sympathy for and understanding of lumber, they will have 

 a genuine respect for this commodity wheu they have become con- 

 sumers, and possessing knowledge, will be able to form fair judgments 

 which the present generation witb its dearth of knowledge cannot 

 possibly form. 



British Sawmill Federation 



SAWMILL PEOPEIETORS IN GEEAT BRITAIN AND IKE- 

 LAND have organized themselves into a federation, corre- 

 sponding, apparently, to the lumber associations in this country. 

 One of the purposes specified in the announcement is the offering 

 of assistance to the government in formulating an after-war busi- 

 ness policy. Another is to secure for sawmills a greater share of 

 the business which of right belongs to them. Two meetings have 

 been held and another will be held soon. 



American exporters will watch this movement with interest, for 

 it is something new in the British lumber business. It is not ap- 

 parent in what way it can benefit American exporters, and it is 

 not intended to benefit them. It is more easily understood how 

 the federation may hurt lumbermen on this side of the Atlantic. 

 For instance, if the mill owners on the other side, when they reach 

 out for more business, should decide to import Japanese oak and 

 saw the lumber themselves, instead of buying American oak lum- 

 ber, our trade would be hurt. A general policy among them of im- 

 porting logs instead of lumber where it could be done would have 

 its effect on American exports; but, if it lessened the purchase of 

 our lumber, it might increase the demand for our logs, particularly 

 oak, hickory, and ash. 



Clearing the Way for Exports 



OPPORTUNITIES SHOULD NOT BE PERMITTED TO GET 

 AWAY FROM US. That is the import of an important 

 paragraph in the message which President Wilson submitted to 

 Congress on December 5, reading as follows: 



I shall not argue at length the desirability of giving a freer hand In the 

 matter of combined and concerted effort to those who shall undertake the 

 essential enterprise of building up our export trade. That enterprise will 

 presently, will Immedlatel.v assume, has Indeed already assumed, a magni- 

 tude unprecedented In our experience. We have not the necessary instru- 

 mentalities for its prosecution : it is deemed to be doubtful whether they 

 could be created upon an adequate scale under our present laws. We 

 should clear away all ligal obstacles and create a basis of undoubted law 

 for it which will give freedom without permitting unregulated license. 

 The thing must be done now, because the opportunity Is here and may 

 escape us it we hesitate or delay. 



It is evident that the Webb bill, or some measure similar to it, 

 was in the president's mind when he wrote the foregoing paragraph. 

 Lumbermen have taken special interest in that bill and did all 

 they could to secure its passage during the late session of Congress. 

 If its terms are embodied in law, the benefit will accrue particularly 

 to exporters of lumber. 



Those who have sold lumber in the foreign markets have been 

 handicapped by want of authority to form necessary associations 

 and business combines to contend with overseas trade conditions. 

 There has been fear that to make combines of such a nature might 

 render those engaged in them amenable ,to the Sherman law. The 

 uncertainty in the matter has had the same effect in deterring 

 efforts to form associations for selling lumber in foreign markets, 

 as if such associations wore clearly prohibited by law. It was to 

 clear up the situation and settle the question of right or no right 

 to combine that the president called attention to the matter. 



Lumber exporters in tliis country have found the expense very 

 heavy, when each exporter has sent his own representative abroad. 

 The need of having one agency in foreign fields representing several 

 firms or associations in this country has been long felt. Such a 



sales campaign could be carried on with greater economy than 

 where several agents are competing for the same business, cover- 

 ing the same territory again and again, and working as competitors 

 instead of acting in a common cause and to the same end. 



If the law shall be changed to permit concerted action bj' ex- 

 porters who pool their interests, it is believed that lumber exports 

 from the L'^nited States will show a great increase and that the 

 exporters, by cutting cost, will realize a higher percentage of 

 profit from their sales. 



Lest We Forget 



DANGER LURKS IN FOEGETFULNESS. That is a lesson 

 pointed out by a late bulletin published by the government and 

 dealing with the disagreeable truth that our forests are being cut 

 at a rapid rate and little is being done toward planting or otherwise 

 providing for the future lumber supply. The region of the southern 

 pine, particularly the longleaf or hard pine, is singled out as an 

 example. That wood is going at a rate which threatens to leave 

 little at the end of thirty-five years, and the efforts to bring on 

 new forests of the same kind of timber is negligible. If exhaustion 

 of the longleaf pine comes, it will leave a gap that no other tree 

 will fill as well; for in addition to the lumber produced, it is this 

 tree, almost exclusively, that furnishes the pitch, tar, turpentine, 

 and rosin which supply the largest part of the world's trade. There 

 is no other visible source from which supplies can come, when the 

 South ceases to produce naval stores. 



This is an old story. Many a time has it been pointed out that 

 the American forests are going at a rate faster than they are 

 growing. To keep on repeating it may become as doleful as the 

 warnings of the Hebrew prophet foretelling the destruction of 

 Jerusalem; but how, except by repeated waruiiigs, can the matter 

 be kept before the peopled By what other means can the people's 

 memory be continually refreshed on this subject which is of so 

 vital import to the country's future? 



There is no reason why southern yellow pine should be pointed 

 to as an awful example, further than that it is a highly important 

 wood and when it is gone it will be missed. All the commercial 

 woods of the country are traveling the same road, though not all 

 so rapidly as yellow pine. No new crisis or danger has come up, 

 calling for a new warning at this time. It is the same old steady 

 progress toward forest depletion that has been with us many years. 



What is the use of prophesying and sending out warnings, unless 

 some remedial measure can be offered? The man who operates a 

 sawmill is not going to blow off the steam and shut down to save 

 timber; nobody expects him to, and he ought not. Millmen ■will 

 continue to saw all the lumber they can sell, so long as they have 

 timber, and that fact might as well be acknowledged at first as at 

 last. 



In the government bulletin referred to a sensible remedy is pro- 

 posed. It is not put forward as a cure-all or as the only means 

 of forest salvation, but as a promise of improvement. It is sug- 

 gested that the states should have state forests. It is presumed 

 that the}' can afford to hold the land; and it will not be thrown on 

 the market and the timber cut, merely to meet financial pressure, 

 as is often done when the land belongs to an individual. The cut- 

 over land and the unjiroductive tracts are better in the ownership 

 of the state than in private hands. The state can wait for a new 

 crop of timber to grow; but often a private owner cannot or will 

 not, and he abandons the land to fall a prey to fires, erosion, and 

 over-grazing, which destroy the prospects of a future growth of 

 trees. The state has means to fight fires and expel trespassers, 

 which the individual does not possess, and the growing timber 

 profits accordingly. When the time comes to cut the trees, the 

 state can regulate the operation and leave enough on the ground 

 to assure a future stand; aud the individual or companii' owner does 

 not always do that. 



These are some of the suggestions made hy the government, 

 speaking in the light of experience, and though they are not new, 

 they are worth consideration. 



