HARDWOOD RECORD 



23 



than they do on products packed iu the frail paper containers. 

 This would help the wooden box situation to a considerable extent. 

 The project of asking railroads to amend their classifications 

 on the shipment of box timber by making a lower rate on this 

 material than that which prevailed on lumber of higher grades, 

 was also taken up at this meeting. This subject proved to be a 

 debatable one and was referred to the executive board, with power 

 to act. It would probably be a comparatively easy matter to in- 

 duce the railroads to lower their rates on No. 2 and lower grades 

 of lumber if at the same time they were permitted to correspond- 

 ingly increase the rates on No. 1 and better. 



A number of very notable papers were read at this meeting that 

 are of paramount interest to the lumber industry outside of the 

 box manufacturing trade, and several of them will be presented 

 in the next issue of this publication. 



Artificial Lumber Made from Sawdust 



Some time ago Hasdwood Eecord reproduced from the Daily 

 Consular and Trade Reports a paragraph from the consul-general 

 at Hamburg, telling of a German process for the manufacture of 

 flooring material composed of sifted sawdust and chloride of mag- 

 nesium. This is a patented process and has thus far been employed 

 in the making of colored tioor- 

 iug tiles. It is alleged that 

 the material is going into use 

 quite extensively in some of the 

 chief German cities, and that it 

 is being employed iu the new 

 Hearst building, Chicago, and 

 quite generally used for flooring 

 in steel Pullman cars. 



Through the courtesy of Dr. 

 C A. Scheuck, director of the 

 Biltmore Forest School, now in 

 "winter quarters at Darmstadt, 

 Germany, Haedwood Eecord has 

 received a specimen of this 

 material, which is on exhibition 

 at this office. From a cursory 

 examination it would look as 

 though this product might be 

 made a basis for a large com- 

 mercial industry in the United 

 States, in the manufacture not 

 only of flooring tiles, but for 

 wall covering, veneer cores, 

 boxes and for an infinity of 

 other purposes. 



The process has been patented in the United States, and is 

 worthy the investigation of anyone interested in forest conserva- 

 tion. It seems logical that a vast quantity of woods waste might 

 be shredded, mixed with sawdust, and after being combined with 

 chloride of magnesium or some other suitable "binder," be trans- 

 formed into a commercial product of vast importance. 



Hardwood Record will make further investigations of the 

 material and its cost, and advise its readers on the subject. It 

 seems that a comprehensive plant could use the material unsuit- 

 able for the making of artificial lumber in the manufacture of 

 lumber for brick fuel purposes. Machines for making fuel 

 briquettes are operated at a low cost, and furnish a high-class fuel 

 which can be stored, without loss of space, in city apartment 

 houses, to be used for grate fires that have all the allurements of 

 open wood fires. 



A Comparison of German and American Wood- 

 Working Machinery 



In a recent circular of the Biltmore Forest School it is recited 

 that an inspection by the students was recently made of a modern 

 wood-working machinery institution at Oflfenbach, Germany. It 

 recites that the difference between American and German wood- 



:UNSOLICITED TESTI MON I AL = 



S. 1. Irohm 



i0halraalp T^ariuioaiJ Cumbrr 



37Z lagnr Btvtet 



Buffalo, N. Y., Nov. 20, 1911. 

 Hardwood Record. 



Chicago, III. 

 Gentlemen — Enclosed find my check, No. 236. covering 

 the amount of your invoice November 15. Will say I am 

 well pleased with the advertisement so far, as I have had 

 letters from eight millmen offering me their stock. 

 Yours very truly, 



E. B. BROWN. 



Above refers to a 6-line classified ad, which was pub- 

 lished one time only, ten days before this letter was 

 written. 



working tools is a marked one "brought about by the difference 

 in economic conditions confronting lumbermen in the old and new 

 worlds." German machines are built to save lumber and power, 

 while American machines are built to save labor. American 

 machines work for quantity, while German machines work for 

 quality. German tools are frequently combination machines used 

 for a variety of purposes in small shops. The American manu- 

 facturer requires a machine to do but a single thing rapidly and 

 efficiently. In America it is not necessary for a machine to outlast 

 a man's generation, the American realizing that a new and better 

 one than that which is now considered the best will soon be avail- 

 able. On the contrary, the German lumberman buys a machine to 

 last as long as he lives and longer. 



"American wood-working machinery manufacturers in the ma- 

 jority of cases are specialists in given lines of machinery. On 

 the other hand, German manufacturers are in a position to supply 

 the trade with any and all kinds of machines that have anything 

 to do with timber and wood renianufacturing. " 



Hardwood Record does not agree with the analysis and deduc- 

 tions made by the class president of the Biltmore Forest School, 

 from the fact that during the last few years American wood- 

 working machinery producers have been engaged in so thoroughly 



improving the types and quality 

 of their tools as to make them 

 not only of the highest effi- 

 ciency as to quantity of output, 

 but of such a permanent charac- 

 ter that they are on a par in 

 quality with the highest type of 

 iron and steel working ma- 

 chiner}-. 



American wood-working tools 

 have ceased to be temporary in 

 character, but have withstood 

 severe usage for an untold 

 number of years. Nothing yet 

 has been devised in German 

 wood-working tools that is bet- 

 ter in any respect than the more 

 recent product of American 

 wood-working machinery plants, 

 and American machinery manu- 

 facturers have been able to find 

 very little in German tools that 

 they could adopt for making im- 

 provements in their own prod- 

 uct. On the contrary, German 

 woodworking machinery manufacturers, and English tool makers 

 as well, have exercised a vast deal of generosity to themselves in 

 employing many of the devices and inventions put into use by 

 American wood-working tool makers, and in most instances do so 

 without as much as "by your lief." 



The vast superiority of American wood-working tools over those 

 produced in any other part of the world is not questioned by the 

 average woodworker, and several of the manufacturers of this 

 country ship as high as forty per cent of their machinery product 

 to various foreign lands. 



Lumber Price Lists 



For many years the lumber trade press carried as a regular 

 feature, lists of prices at which lumber was sold in the chief mar- 

 kets of the country. These price lists, although the information 

 was collected, collated and published with the greatest care to 

 reflect the real prices at which lumber was being sold, were faulty, 

 and eventually lumbermen made such severe protests against their 

 publication that the entire lumber trade press, with one exception, 

 ceased their publication, and this one exception still publishes in 

 supplement form an abridged list, with circulation to a special 

 element of its clients. 



