HARDWOOD RECORD 



23 



If we'd slay our frionds and noighbors. let's perform our gory labors 

 like true sports would pay the fiddler, scorning to conceal our tracks ; we 

 shall take our mission gravely, we shall don our war paint bravely, hunt 

 our victims in the open, and there slay them with an ax. 



The strictures made by the ■writer against food adulterators 

 applies -with equal pertinency to those of sordid souls -who during 

 the last few years have engineered the steel passenger car cam- 

 paign, on the pretense that this type of all-steel construction af- 

 forded increased safety to the traveling public in the event of 

 collision or derailment. The theses on this subject -which have 

 been published in H.\rdavood Eecokd during the last few months 

 have demonstrated beyond peradventure that full-steel car con- 

 struction to afford the traveling public increased safety is entirely 

 a pretense, and that the whole game has been worked out to con- 

 tribute to the increased consumption of steel, regardless of the 

 protests of competent car building engineers. 



Those responsible for this solid-steel-car fraud are just as 

 unsportsmanlike as are the food adulterators. Let to them be 

 repeated the words of Mason: "If we'd slay our friends and 

 neighbors, let's perform our gorj' labors like true sports * * ♦ 

 don our war paint bravely, hunt 



Northwest has its i)rojHirtions of unusual features in quickly getting 

 rich. Perhaps California has developed more of thi.s class of Walling- 

 ford enterprises tlian most any other region. This state apparently 

 has a good many citizens with enough idle time on their hands to 

 figure out "many cat-hole deals" to present to the unwary. 



A few months ago Hardwood Eecord published a resume of the 

 famous goose farm enterprise, which had superior merits to the aver- 

 age investment proposition offered in the daily papers and cheap 

 magazines, but right now there comes out of this state a brand-new 

 one, which looks even bc?tter than anything that has heretofore been 

 ofl'ered. This comes in the form of a letter to Postmaster Campbell 

 of Chicago, and is printed herewith in full: 



Dear Sir : Knowing you have had some interest in the fur business I 

 take the liberty of presenting you with what seems to me a most won- 

 derful proposition, and in which no doubt you will take a lively interest 

 and perhaps wire me the amount of stock that you wish to subscribe 

 towards the formation of this company. 



The object of the company is to operate a large cat ranch in or near 

 Oakland, where land can be purchased cheap for this purpose. 



To start with we will collect about, say, 100,000 cats. Each 

 cat will average twelve kittens a year. The skins will run from 10 



cents each for the white ones to 



our victims in the open, and 

 there slay them with an ax." 



Cycles of Get-Rich- 

 Quick Enterprises 



It is a singular thing that 

 various phases of get-rieh-quick 

 enterprises are turned loose on 

 the public in cycles, usually de- 

 pending on the general prosperity 

 that exists. A few years ago 

 stocks of man}' gold mining enter- 

 prises were exploited daily in the 

 public press, and millions of dol- 

 lars were secured from investors 

 in fake enterprises. Doubtless 

 there are gold mining enterprises 

 that produce profits, but their 

 stock is not offered to the miscel- 

 laneous public through alluring 

 advertisements. The same is true 

 of irrigation enterprises — some 

 of them are good and lots of 

 them are fakes — and the worth- 

 less ones seem to have secured 

 more investors than the good ones, 

 through this same medium of exploitation. 



Then again there have been thoiusands of land enterprises, very few 

 of which had any basic value, which were advertised extensively, and 

 have taken thousands of dollars away from the unwary. Two or three 

 years ago there was an incursion of eucalyptus promotion games, 

 with southern California as the seat of action, by which an untold 

 number was coaxed into investments of varying sizes, the returns 

 from which are still very conjectural. Leading magazines and com- 

 mercial newspapers have scored the fraudulent character of so many 

 of these professedly eleemosynary games for getting the public rich, 

 that at the present time the advertising columns of papers that con 

 sent to carry this class of stuff are rather barren of these alluring- 

 offers. Even many sordid newspaper publishers have awakened to 

 the fact that it doesn't pay to assist this gentry in robbing their 

 patrons, and refuse this class of ' ' business. ' ' 



Another singular feature of these wonderful chances of getting rich 

 quick is the fact that the most alluring ones are located in climes far 

 distant from the centers of population. The Isle of Pines was the 

 center of alleged riches a few years ago ; during the last two years 

 much of the sand-barren sections of Florida has been cut up into farm 

 lots and sold on paper; and the money to be made in Mexico has 

 shown wonderful allurement in newspaper advertisements. The semi- 

 arid plains of the West are still being exploited, and the extreme 



UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIAL 



/Banufacturcrs anS tClbolcsalcrs 



Nashville, Tenn., March 15, 1911. 



Gentlemen: We consider HARDWOOD RECORD one 

 of the best advertising mediums that we patronize, it is 

 properly considered an exclusive hardwood paper, and is 

 very influential in the hardwood trade. The paper is a 

 consistent friend of hardwood association work, and one 

 of its hobbies is universal inspection. Consequently we 

 feel very tcindly towards the paper and its publishers. 

 Aside from this, it has a large circulation among the ship- 

 pers and consumers of hardwoods. 



LOVE, BOYD & CO. 



This scheme has one merit — it ' 



T-"i cents for the pure black. This 

 will give us 12.000,000 skins a 

 year to sell at an average of 30 

 cents apiece, making our revenue 

 about $10,000 a day gross. 



A man can skin fifty cats per 

 day for $2. It will take 100 men 

 to operate the ranch and there- 

 fore the net profit will thus be 

 $0,800 per day. 



We will feed the cats on rats 

 and will start a rat ranch next 

 door. The rats multiply four 

 times as fast as cats. If we start 

 with 1,000,000 rats we will have 

 therefore four rats per day for 

 each cat, which is plenty. 



Now. then, we will feed the 

 rats on the carcasses of the eats 

 from which the skins have been 

 taken, giving each rat a fourth 

 of a cat. 



It will thus be seen that the 

 business will be self-supporting 

 and automatic all the way through. 

 The cats will eat the rats and the 

 rats will eat the cats, and we will 

 get the skins. 



Awaiting your prompt reply and 

 trusting that you appreciate the 

 opportunity that I give you and 

 which will get you rich quick, I 

 remain, L. T. Smith. 



better than the eucalyptus game. 



Log Cost at Memphis 



Personal reports to Hardwood Kecokd from Memphis would 

 indicate that sawmill operators of that city have awakened to 

 the fact that for some years they have been engaged in a very 

 foolish contest with each other to see who could possibly pay the 

 highest price for logs, -with which to stock their mills, with the 

 result that very few have made any profit or see any possibility of 

 making any during the remainder of 1911. A considerable portion 

 of Memphis sawmill men are not stumpage owners, but purchase 

 their logs in the open market. The fancy prices that had been 

 paid for the last year or two are regarded by good authorities 

 as ridiculous, and, as the days of miracles are over, very few are 

 able to continue operations and break even. 



The fancy prices paid for logs have stimulated extravagance in 

 the way of log handling and other costs, and today the cost of 

 hardwood lumber from the stump to cars, via the Memphis channel, 

 is in the neighborhood of twenty-one dollars a thousand straight. 

 This is leaving stumpage values and price out of consideration. 

 When this cost is compared with the stunip-to-car cost of eleven to 

 twelve dollars a thousand in the mountain operations, or about 

 ten dollars a thousand in Michigan and Wisconsin operations, it 



