i6 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



marvelous gaiu, occasionally the publishers get 

 a cancellation of subscription. This is no 

 unique experience in the newspaper publishing 

 business, as there is no newspaper that pleases 

 everyone. 



Here is a letter that has just been re- 

 ceived from the Lansing Spoke Company of 

 Lansing, Mich., a concern manufacturing 

 wagon spokes, bent rims, hounds and hard- 

 vrood lumber. It is a company having a 

 reputation for a satisfactory capitalization, 

 and a good credit rating: 



Lansing, Mich.. Feb. 1. 1905. 



Editor IlAUDwooD Record : Replying to yours 

 of Jan. 30. we would say the trouble with the 

 REConn is that while .you give us a lot of gen- 

 eral infoi-mation in such as. "plain oak is In 

 good demand." "quarter-sawed is a little easier. ' 

 "maple seems to be holding its own." and "John 

 Jones is bailding a new mill" and "Charley 

 Smith is an awful nice fellow." yon do not tell 

 us wliat the dilTereiit grades of lumber are really 

 worth at the different markets. 



Of cours? we know that the publishing of 

 such a price list would in a measure prevent the 

 .iobbers from getting any "snap deals'* from us 

 country sawmill men. and at the same time it 

 might prevent some Chicago jobber from selling 

 a few carloads of No. 1 common at an advance 

 of $10 per M over cost. In that way it wouiti 

 clearly be a violation of interstate commerce 

 interests and hence cannot be allowed unless es- 

 pecially permitted by order of rresident Roose- 

 velt. Therefore we iinit. 



Laxsinu SroKK Company. 



r. S. In other words you tell us a lot of 

 things we do not care a "dam" about, and don't 

 tell us what we want to know. 



1']. S. Porter is set down cm the letterhead 

 of the company as manager and ij. J. Briggs 

 as superintendent. The editor of the Hard- 

 wood Record has not the pleasure of the ac- 

 quaintance of cither of the gentlemen, and 

 does not know which one or if either of 

 them wrote the letter. Out of courtesy he 

 has not transcribed the company's letter ver- 

 batim, as the spelling would be altogether too 

 confusing. It is a pleasure to record this 

 very frank expression from the Lansins 

 Spoke Company of what it would like to find 

 within the covers of the Habdwood Record. 

 and what it does not find there, but he 

 doesn't like the imputation that the non-pul)-, 

 lication of specific price lists is an attemjit 

 on the part of this paper to assist Chicago 

 jobbers, or jobbers from any other section. 

 to make extravagant profits from bucolic in- 

 nocents like the Lansing Spoke Company. 



If the Lansing Spoke Company knew a< 

 much about the lumber business as it should 

 know, it would be conversant with the fact 

 that there is absolutely no just way in which 

 to quote accurate lumber values in the thou- 

 sands of dilTerent points where lumber is 

 produced or consumed. 



The editor of the Record, like other intel- 

 ligent market reporters of lumber, simjily 

 gives the trend of lumber values, leaving the 

 matter of specific prices to individuals and 

 associations. 



The Lansing Spoke Company can send its 

 most competent inspector to a certain point 

 in Ohio or Indiana and have him inspect and 

 take up a carload of white oak lumber under 



certain specific rules of inspection, and then 

 send the same man to perform a like service 

 in certain places in Tennessee, Kentucky. 

 Mississippi or other parts of the country, 

 and when both cars arrive at Lansing, Midi., 

 the Lansing Spoke Company will find that 

 there is a positive difference of value in the 

 two cars of lumber, ranging frflm $6 to $0 

 jjer M feet. The publishing of specific price 

 lists showing hardwood lumber values is 

 -imply ridiculous. 



What the Lansing Spoke Company wants 

 is not a lumber newspaper, but a collection 

 ot price lists, and if the engineers of it will 

 write as pertinent letters to the scores of 

 lumber advertisers in the Hardwood Record 

 as they have to the editor, they can make 

 a most beautiful collection which they can 

 analyze and figure out to their hearts' eon- 

 tent — and then they won't know what "lum- 

 ber is reallv worth." — Editor. 



Association NeWs, 



The Hardwood Manufacturers' Convention. 



The Hardwood Record went to press with 

 its last issue on the last day of the meeting 

 of the Hardwood Manufacturers' Associa- 

 tion, which was held at Nashville on Jan. 

 24 and 25, and of necessity a considerable 

 portion of the report was either omitted 

 or much abridged. It is therefore that the 

 following resume of important papers, leg- 

 islation presented and enacted is herewith 

 produced. 



New Officers. 



The following officers were elected for the en 

 suing year : 



President. R. H. Van Sant. 



Vice President. J. B. Ransom. 



Secretary, Lewis Dostcr. 



Treasurer, F. C. Fisher. 



Executive Board, W. M. Rltter. chairman ; F. 

 C. Fisher, C. Crane, J. B. Ransom, R. II. "Van 

 Sant, R. M. Carrier. Wm. Wilms. 



Vice Presidents for states, Ohio. Frank 1". Fee : 

 Illinois. C. A. Ward : Indiana. C. H. Barnaby ; 

 Tennessee, S. Lleberman ; Kentucky. Floyd Day ; 

 Mississippi. W. H. Burke: West Virginia. H. P. 

 Curtin : Virginia. M. N. OlTutt ; South Carolina, 

 N. W. Gennctt : .North Carolina, W. T. Mason; 

 Missouri, J. H. Ilimmelbergcr : Arkansas, G. E. 

 W. Luehrmann ; Wisconsin, B. J. Foster. 



The thanks of the convention were expressed 

 to the Cumberland Telephone Company for its 

 offer of the free use of long distance wires to 

 Its visiting lumbermen between 3 and 5 p. m.. 

 and to the Tennessee Central Railroad for the 

 ofrer of a special train for an excursion to the 

 Cumberland river lock. 



Owing to lack of space and time, it was Im- 

 possible to give the papers which R. M. C^arrler. 

 Sardis. Miss : Frank F. Fee. Newark, O.. and 

 W. F. Biederman of St. Louis, read before the 

 convention. 



W. F. Biederman, superintendent of the credit 

 rating department of the National Lumber Man- 

 ufacturers' Association, read a paper at the 

 Wednesday session, on the credit rating de- 

 partment. In which he said that the April. 1905, 

 edition, bearing on credit rating, was now being 

 complied. Mr. Biederman stated the price to 

 members having had one years service, would 

 be $30. This would Include the April and Oc- 

 tober editions and complete service, with the ex- 

 ception of special reports, which would be 

 charged for extra. 



Excerpts From R. M. Carrier's Paper. 



R. M. Carrier's, of Sardis, Miss., paper on the 

 "Development of Hardwood Production in the 

 Southwest." had to do with the development and 

 present conditions of the hardwood Industry In 

 Missouri. Arkansas. Louisiana and Mississippi. 



Mr, Carrier estimated the hardwood product 

 for the state of Missouri for 1904 at about 4,')0,- 

 000,000 feet, of which oak furnished 2.">0,000,000, 

 ash, 12,000,000 ; gum, 50,000,000 and cotton- 

 wood 73,000.000. He said that while northeast- 

 ern .\rkansas had been pretty well cleaned up ot 



the better hardwoods a development has been 

 going on all over the state elsewhere, and espe- 

 cially what used to be the exclusive pine sec- 

 tions. Some of the heavy producers now are 

 primarily pine manufacturers who have gone to 

 cutting the bardwoods as they come to them. 

 Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Camden and similar 

 points are all producing hardwoods today. He 

 estimated the output for last year at about 

 620.000.000. the principal Items In which are 

 oak, 305,000,000 feet; ash. 22,000.000 feet: 

 gum, 180,000.000, and cottonwood, 96,000,000 

 feet. 



Louisiana's output has been increasing mate- 

 rially of late years, he said, tbough its product 

 In the hardwoods proper Is light. It is pos- 

 sible that the production of tupelo gum. which 

 has been attracting a good deal of attention 

 within the last four or five years, may increase 

 the total to some material extent In the not 

 distant future. 



Mr. Carrier had this to say about his own 

 state. Mississippi : "It Is an old state so far as 

 lumber manufacture, or at least the supply of 

 logs. Is concerned. For 125 years lumber manu- 

 facture has been carried on within Its borders ; 

 in fact, it Is practically contemporaneous with 

 the growth of "New Orleans, for that old city has 

 almost since Its foundation drawn upon Mis- 

 sissippi to some extent for Its lumber and tim- 

 ber supplies. Some of the original forest of 

 Mississippi has been cleared away and the land 

 devoted to cotton, and then cotton-growing was 

 abandoned and the land has again grown up to 

 pine, which is now being cut (this seems to me 

 a somewhat remarkable instance of what nature 

 might do if given a chance in almost any country 

 that was originally covered with timber), but 

 the early lumber development of Mississippi was 

 chiefly In cypress and pine. Though many years 

 ago Its hardwood forests were Invaded by the 

 stave makers from abroad, the chief hardwood 

 districts of Mississippi seemed until recent years 

 comparatively inaccessible and so it has re- 

 mained to become within the last two decades 

 one of the heavy hardwood producers of the 

 country. Its hardwood belt lies north of the 

 pine belt, though the two classes of wood inter- 

 mix. The whole northern half of the state Is 

 more or less covered with hardwoods while the 

 lowlands everywhere produce broadleafed trees, 

 or cypress. The operations of my company are 

 In one of the most favored timber sections In 

 the country — the Yazoo delta. Here oak and 

 gum grow to the greatest perfection. Perhaps a 

 little fault may sometimes be found witli the 

 grain of the oak because it has grown so fast on 

 the rich soil and in the warm climate, but it 

 grows siiijnd and of mammoth size. The last 

 census reported the hardwood product of Mis- 

 sissippi at 207.322,000 feet, but I think it safe 

 to say that the product last year was In the 

 neighborhood of ;!(IO,000,000 feet. The oak prod- 

 uct I should estimate at 145,000,000 feet, the 

 ash at 15,000. OoO. cottonwood at .^O.OOO.OOO 

 and the gum at .",5.000.000 feet. I should thlnlr 

 these figures are too low. for (here lias been i 

 considerable devi-lopment in the last four years, 



"Summing up the product of Missouri. Arkan- 

 sas. Louisiana an/l Mississippi In the four woods 



