36 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



operator is losing money every day. llow- 

 fcver. we feel that alwiit the only way that 

 logs will be brought ilowu to a reasonable 

 figure in the Memphis market will be by elim- 

 inating the weak operators. 



The foregoing is the gist of a letter from 

 a foremost and very suecessfiil ileniphis hird- 

 wood lumber institution, and siniplv verifies 

 the analysis presented by Hakdwood Record 

 on this subject several weeks ago. — KmrnR. 

 B 132 — European Beech 



New York. Nov. 28. Editor Hardwood Kko- 

 (iiiD : We take the liberty of recurring to the 

 matter of .American and Continental beech under 

 Mail Bag heading B 128 of II.vudwood Uecoku 

 of Nov. 2.">. I>r. Schenck states that every- 

 where in Europe the entire beech log is 

 worked into lumber "sap and heart alike." 

 This is an obvious mistake, as the largeM 

 beech production is to be found in Austro- 

 llungary. where no heart-wood is toleratetl in 

 I he lumber. Also all the strips for bending 

 purpo.ses must be cut exclusively from the sap- 

 wood, as it is impossible to bend the heart- 

 wood, as this wood is in a slalc of incipient 

 drcay. 1. llKuz. 



B 133 — Flooring Material Made from Saw- 

 dust as a Base 



The editor of H.«d\vood Riccokd recently 

 asked Dr. C. A. Schenck, director of the Bilt- 

 niore Forest School, now in winter quarters 

 at Darmstadt, Germany, to look up and report 

 on the method cf manufacture and formulas 

 employed in the production of flooring and 

 kindred materials made in Hamburg from 

 sawdust and wood waste, as recounted in a 

 recent consular report. Dr. Schenck 's reply 

 is as follows: 



llarmstadt. Germany. Nov. 17. Editor Hard- 

 wood Rkcoud : I have written for information 

 on this subject to the one source of general 

 information in this line. Prof. Wislecenus at 

 Tbarandt. Just as soon as I hear from him. 

 you will get all the knowledge which can be 

 accumulated. 



Yon know that I am very eager to serve 

 yon. but I am somewhat afraid that American 

 manufacturers lay more stress on these Ger- 

 many inventions than they actually deserve. 

 Some of the finest uses for wood in lieu of iron 



I have seen in the United States, and not in 

 Germany. 



Further on in this letter, but not apropos 

 to the subject in hand. Dr. Schenck writes: 



"Wliat Is known in America as English wliite 

 oak of the highest grade is not produced in 

 England any more than English w;ilnut is 

 produced in England. PTnglish oak iit" the high- 

 est grade comes from Spessart. The Spessart 

 oak Is particularly even in color ; particularly 

 homogeneous in grain ; particularly straight in 

 fibre, so that the pieces drop apart instead of 

 being split apart when they are hit with the 

 njte. When I visited this range of growth 

 fonrteen years ago the highest grades of logs 

 were selling standing In the woods at $100 a 

 thousand feet. At this time the highest aver- 

 age prlc- obtained for the timber Is $180 a 

 thousand, and th>- best and highest price is 

 $B«in a thousand. I tell you it Is mighty good 

 to see tri'es worth $2,000 to $3,000 standing 

 In the woods. 



"The price for stnmpage seems to be going 

 i:p in the Eatherland. and to cite an llhiKtrious 

 .\merloan orator ; 'Stnmpage prices have ob- 

 iftlnid In the hands of the few a value making 



II necessary to lo<jk for limber supplies <»ut- 

 slde of the confines of the Tnlied Slates." 



■This year ihe onk trees In the spessart were 



loaded with acorns and some of the ncorns were 



,f large as hens' eggs. The fall has brought 



the foresters In this dlstrht n 'phenomi'ual 



Uia.st year." Ii) use an uld-fashioned term ; a 

 mast year better tJian any which the last de- 

 cades of forestry have witnessed. You should 

 have seen thty eagerness with which the for- 

 esters took advantage of it, planting many 

 hundreds of acres of land in acorns to the 

 tune of twelve bushels to the acre, so as to 

 supply the future with the needed oak timber. 

 The future! Imagine: to produce a decent oak 

 log. 300 years are required. It takes some 

 courage, indeed, even if oak stumpage is worth 

 $000 a tho\isaud to look ahead for 300 years. 

 Naturally the ijheuonieiutl price of oak heru- 

 pbouts is expIaiiUMi by its relative scarcity. 

 Maybe the few fellows in America still owning 

 prime white oak stumpage will be wise to hold 

 onto it. Perhaps, too, the best method of luiu- 

 bering is not to lumber at all. Woe. however, 

 to the economic tyrant who would retain the 

 stumpage uncut for a number of years : whose 

 unearthed profits are taken from the pockets 

 of the poor consumers ; who would do Ilockc 

 feller one better ! 



"The attitude of Ihe Germans with reference 

 to a timber (rust dilfers very much from the 

 attitude of the Americans. The entire system 

 of forestry in (Germany is indeed based on the 

 existence of a stum^jagc trust, the owners of 

 limber agreeing to cut no more per annum 

 than the forest reproduces by actual growth. 

 If I were to cut no more in the glorious state 

 of North Carolina than the quantity which 

 the forest produces. 1 should go to the state 

 penitentiary in a capacity other than that of 

 a watchman. There will be no conservative 

 forestry on private lands, unless it l>e backed 

 by a trust. There would be no harm whatso- 

 ever if the states owning timber land and the 

 federation owning two-lifths of the timber land 

 in the Vnited States were partners to such a 

 trust. 



Apropos to the observation of this MU)st 

 eminent forester, the editor of Hardwood 

 Record would again call the attention of lum- 

 ber producers and consumers alike to the 

 decadence of oak production in the United 

 States. The government statisticians allege 

 that there were 4,414,000,000 feet of oak ])ro- 

 duced in this country in 1909, and the recent 

 preliminary census reports state that the 1910 

 .'Ut amounted to 3,522,098,000 feet. It is 

 safe to assume that the oak cut of this coun- 

 try for 1911 will not exceed 3,000,000,000 

 feet, i. e., a diminution in oak lun>ber output 

 in two years of fifty per cent. This diuiiiir 

 ished oak output can only slightly be traced 

 to diminished denuind. The diminution in 

 )iroduction is largely based on the extinction 

 of oak-producing areas, and still car oak is 

 going begging in the Chicago market at from 

 $23 to $30 a thousjind. — Editor. 



B 134 — Suspiclousi of Log Run 



Cincinnati. O.. Dee. I. — Editor Hardwood 

 I{K('»)RD : We are just in receipt of a letter 

 from a Chicago buyer to whom we have been 

 trying to sell some log Vun lumber, which it 

 occurs to us Is rather pertinent to log run sales. 

 He says that our proposition reminds him of 

 the story of the darkey negotiating for the jiur- 

 chase of a coop of chickens. 



Mr. I>arkey : " How many ole roosters and 

 hens dai won't lay In doi cooi), mister?" 



"Don! know ; you'll have to guess by the sl-/.i' 

 of the coop." 



He concludes by observing: "You lau'l sill 

 me any log run stock without a guai-antee of 

 percentage of grades." 



I.I MUKK Co\ll'A\\. 



B 135 — Thinks of Offering a Prize to Lum 

 ber Inspectors 



Memphis. Tenu., lire. 2 Edilor H.midwood 

 Ukc-ord: Iio you niM Ihink il would be a good 



plan lo offei- a series ol prizes lo at tempi to 

 sei'ure more uniform work by professional lum 

 ber inspectors'^ Suppose a free-for-all prize of 

 tifty dollars were offered, and divided into a lirst 

 prize of twenly-Bve dollars, a second prize of 

 lifteen dollars, and a third prize of ten dollars, 

 to inspectors who would measure a car of 4/4 

 . log run oak. tally in grades three times over 

 and come closest to himself each time. If I 

 could get 1) reasonable number of entries for this 

 contest, and wotild be assured of full pul)licity 

 of the results. I think 1 would be inclined to 

 .spend the fifty dollars for the sake of demon- 

 strating to more than mw lumber association 

 that lumber inspection as conducted at the pres- 



I nt time does not amotmt to anything more than 



a li'Kxl guess. 



B 136 — Advantages of Dimension Production 

 Columbus. O., I>ec. 4. — ICdltor H.VKiiwnoD 

 Rkc'ord : If there is any one thing that a saw- 

 mill man needs today it is a trade in furniture 

 dimension stock, so that lie may work up his 

 low-grade lumber and slabs into what clear ma- 

 terial there is in it. and i|uit shipping knots and 

 refuse half way across the country on a liun- 

 (h'ed-dollai'-a-ear freight, and then have the fur- 

 iiitui'e factory make if up into ease goods and 

 chairs and ship it back to tlie same district 

 with a return freight of one hundred dollars or 

 more per car, and a proportionate increase' of 

 cost to the consumer all the way around. 



Wlial is needed is the establishment of a price 

 for clear hardwood lumlier <limension that is 

 worthy of manufacturers' attention. Because a 

 few sawmill pi'ople don't know how to get the 

 value out of their dimension stock, and present 

 it to furniture factories at about the price of 

 .No. 1 common ( that siiows a waste of 33J per 

 cent by raanufaeturin.g process), there is no rea- 

 son wily sawmill men should not wake up to the 

 possibility that furniture people will pay them 

 the full price ol firsts and seconds for high- 

 class diniensi(*u stock. 



l.tMBEK CllMlWNV. 



B 137 — Longe'vity of Wood 



Baltimore. Mil., Nov. 22.- Editor ll.uiliwoOD 

 Uiocoui) : If a person wished to build a house 

 that wovild last as Ituig as possible, tlie lenutli 

 of service being tlie only thing considered, wha^ 

 wood should he use? K. L. McKinsev. 



The following reply has been sent in re 

 sponse to the above inquiry: 



In building a house a good many things are 

 to be considered besides tile longevit.v of the 

 wood contained therein, and no matter how ex- 

 travagantly the house might be built, the eost 

 would have to be considered. 



You can grasp a general idea of the subject 

 covering (he paucity of definite information 

 about American woods, from the enclosed clip- 

 ping from an editorial in IT.midwood ltKi"riRi> 

 under date of October 2.". and you also can get 

 a fair knowledge of the longevity of poplar 

 lumber, which probably has no superior for 

 length of life, from a perusal of the enclosed 

 reprint entitled ".V Polemic cut Poplar." 



Cypress is the wood very much touted In 

 magazine advertising at the pri'sent time as 

 having remarkalile <|ualities of longevlly. (he 

 genius wrKiug this copy I'ven alleging that it is 

 "the wood eternal." and Is "not subject to rot 

 iiillui'uci'." This is all bosh. T'nder certain 

 eondltious c.'i-press wood will la.st for many 

 years. On the other blind. I have seen It in 

 jilaces where It disintegrated In three years. 



Had this poplar barn luillt in 1842 been placed 

 on a high and dry foumladon. and (hen painted 

 two or three times sinie. It is fair to assume 

 that Ihe slruclnre would have withstood decay 

 for centuries. 



There Is this feature alxuit wood : .\ny variety 

 will last longer in (lu' habitat of growth (ban 



II will when removed fnuu (hat location. 

 Cypress will last longer in Louisiana (ban it 

 will In Minnesota, and very likely poplar will 

 witlisland atmospheric conditions longer In Ohio 

 .11 liidl.'iiiii ibiiii II would In Texas. 



