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Published in the Interest of the American Hardwood Forests, the Products thereof, and Logging. Saw 

 Mill and Wood-working Machinery, on the 10th and 25th of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Henry H. Gibson, President 



Entire Seventh Floor Ellsworth Building 

 537 So. Dearborn Street, CHICAGO 



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Vol. XXXIII 



CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 10, 1912 



No. 8 



General Market Conditions 



A very anomalous situation obtains in the hardwood market at 

 the present time. There is a remarkable shortage of many items 

 of stock, especially of No. 1 common and better, and the general 

 volume of trade is excellent, but the price situation is one that 

 defies analysis. There is a variation of from three to six or seven 

 dollars a thousand in the prices asked and received for various 

 alleged grades of lumber sold. This can only be accounted for by 

 a deficiency in standard of grade. Undoubtedly until grades are 

 more fully standardized, values will show the same erratic condi- 

 tions. 



One feature that looks good is an increased demand at better 

 values for low-grade stock of many varieties of hardwoods, and 

 the surplus in the lower grades is being rapidly cleared up. 



Buyers have evidently awakened to the fact that if they are to 

 have lumber with which to conduct their various enterprises, it 

 will be wise for them to get their orders placed, and the stock in 

 their possession. 



In brief, the hardwood market situation is excellent as to volume, 

 and very erratic as to grade and price, and it is very difficult to 

 establish anything that will determine what constitutes hardwood 

 sales values at the present time. 



Coming Association Meetings 



There are ouh' two important meetings scheduled for the near 

 future that would naturally attract the attendance of the hardwood 

 element. The first of these is the annual meeting of the Lumber 

 Sales Managers', Association, which will be held at the Auditorium 

 Hotel, Chicago, on Thursday and Friday, February 15 and 16. The 

 committee in charge of the program for this meeting insists that 

 no one having lumber sales in charge can afford to miss it. Mat- 

 ters of paramount importance in the development of correct sales 

 methods will come up at this meeting. For a more distinct study 

 of the objects of this organization, and the prospects of what can 

 be accomplished through it, readers are referred to the address of 

 Acting President F. L. Brown, which will be found in connection 



with the report in this issue, of the meeting of the Hardwood 

 Manufacturers' Association of the United States. It is a strong, 

 straight-from-the-shoulder talk on the subject of the good ethics 

 in marketing lumber. Beyond question the meeting should bring 

 out a ver}- large attendance of sales managers and others inter- 

 ested in the marketing of forest products. 



The other important meeting ' is that of the National Wholesale 

 Lumber Dealers' Association, which will be held at the Seelbaeh 

 Hotel, Louisville, Ky., on Wednesday and Thursday, March 6 and 

 7, with the Louisville Lumbermen's Club as hosts. To this meeting 

 is invited every hardwood manufacturer, dealer and wholesale con- 

 sumer who is interested in the unification of hardwood inspection 

 rules, because if this desideratum is brought about, it apparently 

 will come through the efforts of this sterling eastern organization, 

 which seemingly is holding out the olive branch to all interested 

 in hardwood affairs to get them together and standardize hard- 

 wood grading rules. Hardwood men will be repaid by making no 

 inconsiderable sacrifice, if necessary, to be present at this meeting. 



The Oak and Chestnut Situation ' 



On the Monday of last week, previous to the meeting of the 

 Hardwood Manufacturers ' Association at Cincinnati, a special 

 meeting was called of manufacturers interested in oak and chest- 

 nut production, regardless of their alliance with any of the asso- 

 ciations. Present at the meeting were fifty or sixty leading 

 operators, and while the meeting was an executive one, it devel- 

 oped, from a comparison of individual opinions, that oak and 

 chestnut stocks were very short, and that neither wood was com- 

 manding a price that a short supply and good demand warranted, 

 to say nothing about the intrinsic merits of the woods. 



A committee was appointed to more fully analyze the situation, 

 and this committee 's report urged an attempt for a closer co- 

 operation between oak and chestnut manufacturers. It was sug- 

 gested that data be obtained to demonstrate the exact conditions 

 of oak and chestnut, as to the kind and various thicknesses and 

 grades in stock, both dry and green; also the quantity involved 



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