HARDWOOD RECORD 



43 



The Liimber Mutual Fire Insurance Com- 

 pany of Boston 



The Lumber Miinial lire Insurance Company 

 of Boston has published a little booklet giving 

 a historical sketch of the company, which was 

 written by Director George IT. Davenport, and 

 read at the recent annual dinner of the com- 

 pany. 



Mr. Davenport recites that the company was 

 born seventeen years ago : that its early his- 

 tory was one of financial perplexities, and of 

 slow growth, but he believes that the time has 

 come when those who stood sponsor for the 

 company can look forward to its eventually be- 

 ing a corporation with fifty million dollars at 

 risk: with five million dollars surplus, and with 

 annual dividends of seventy-five per cent. 



In 1804. in Boston, there was an organiza- 

 tion called the Massachusetts Retail Lumber 

 Dealers" Protective Association. At one of Its 

 monthly meetings, Wm. O. Curtis, present treas- 

 urer of the Lumber Mutual Fire Insurance Com 

 pany of Boston said that he felt for a long timi' 

 that lumber dealers were being charged larger 

 premiums for their insurance than the holders 

 of other merchandise in warehouses and fac- 

 tories were paying, with less risk, and suggested 

 that in his judgment the time was ripe to look 

 into the matter of mutual insurance, and see if 

 something could not be done to better the con 

 ditions and cause a saving in premiums to the 

 members. 



The idea was caught with enthusiasm, and 

 the result of that meeting was the appointment 

 of a committee, with Mr. Curtis as chairman, to 

 ascertain from the members and the lumber 

 dealers of Massachusetts their insurance records 

 for the previous ten years. The result of this 

 investigation showed that the sixty-seven deal- 

 ers reporting had paid in ten years nearly three 

 hundred thousand dollars in insurance, and had 

 received for losses only a little more than a 

 hundred thousand dollars. 



The laws of Massachusetts were not favor- 

 able for the organization of a mutual fire insur- 

 ance company, as they specified that a compan.v 

 of this sort must start with four hundred 

 separate risks, and with a value in the aggre- 

 gate of one million dollars. 



The committee had a hard task before It, but 

 on Jan. 16, 1S95, the company had succeeded 

 in obtaining forty-three signatures to an agree- 

 ment to constitute a corporation to establish a 

 mutual fire insurance company. These men 

 agreed to place insurance with the uew com- 

 pany, splitting up their risks in numerous 

 jiolicies in order to reach the requisite number 

 to comply with the law. On Feb. 15, 1895, the 

 company was definitely organized, and on March 

 5, following, the incorporation was granted by 

 the secretary of state. 



On July 17 following, the company had se- 

 cured nearly three-quarters of a million dollars' 

 insui-ance ; more than fifteen thousand dollars 

 in premiums, and had no losses. 



On Dec. 31, 1SH5, when the company was 

 nine months old, it had more than a million 

 and a quarter dollars' worth of risks, and it 

 showed losses of only slightly over a thousand 

 dollars, and had a net cash surplus of nearly 

 five thousand dollars. 



On March 3, 1S9C, the company voted a divi- 

 dend in the form of a rebate of ten per cent on 

 the premiums paid. Then the compan.v had a 

 little setback, and its surplus was exhausted, 

 but on Dec. 31, 1896, the company finished 

 with a cash surplus of about five thousand 

 dollars. Since that time it has gone steadily 

 forward until on Dec, 31. 1911, it had a net 

 cash surplus of §471, 000. Xot a year has 

 passed since 1895 without a gain ranging from 

 three thousand dollars to as high as eighty- 

 three thousand dollars. From a ten per cent 

 dividend in 1S9G, the company paid as high as 

 forty per cent dividends in 1909. 



The record of the Lumber Mutual Fire In- 

 surance Company of Boston is one of which 



any insurance company might well be proud. 

 The increasing business of the organization, 

 and the confidence in which it is held by its 

 policy holders, is a living testimonial of the 

 appreciation in which it is held. 



The Veneer Man 



The accomjjanying iiiclui-e illustrates the 

 artist's idea of the venei-r man. It, is not certain 

 whetlier it intends to convey the impression that 

 this is a sliced cut man. a sawed veneer man or 

 a rotar.v cut man, or whether it is intended for 

 a panel man, but surely it is the picture of a 

 wooden man. 



The artist is J. V. Ilamilton of Fort Scott. 

 Kan., who exhibits no little ingenuity in pictures 

 of tills type, as well as the advertising designs 

 whicli lie has reproduced in II.tUDWOOD Record. 



THE VENEER MAX. 



Committees Philadelphia Wholesale Lmnter 

 Dealers' Association 



Horace A. Reeves. Jr., president of the Phila- 

 delphia Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association, 

 recently appointed the following committees for 

 1912 : 



EXTEUT.iixsiENT COMMITTEE : William T. 

 Belts, Robert G. Kay, J. Danforth Bush. 



ME3IBERSH1P Co.\i:mittee : Thomas B. Hammer, 

 Robert W. Schofield, Samuel II. Shearer, W. T. 

 Robinson, J. E. Troth. . 



R.\ILROAD AND TEAXSPORTATIOX COMMITTEE : 



Emil Guenther, B. Franklin Belts, Augustus J. 

 Cadwallader. 



.\DVisOR\- Committee: American Forestry 

 Association, Robert C. Lippincott, J. Randall 

 Williams, Frederick S. mderhlil. 



PA.N-A3IA Caxal Co-MMIttee : Owen M. Bruner, 

 Robert G. Kay, George F. Craig. Thomas B. 

 Hammer, S. Ashton Souder. 



An Unnecessary Waste 



A recent article in the Saturday Evening Post 

 on Wood Waste by Forrest Crissey speaks of the 

 waste of oak timber contingent upon the opera- 

 tion of the tan bark industry in California. This 

 species of oak grows among the redwoods, and it 

 has been the practice of redwood timber owners to 

 sell the tan bark privilege about two years in ad- 

 vance of removing the redwood. The amount of 



money received for this privilege was trifling, and 

 in fact the value of the giant trees seemed to over- 

 shadow entirely the possibilities of realizing any 

 profit for the manufacture of the oak. The arti- 

 cle says that if these trees stood in forests by 

 themselves they would be considered splendid 

 specimens showing clean boles sixty to eighty feet 

 to the lowest limbs. 



The practice has been to cut the trees, and 

 after stripping them of their bark to leave them 

 as useless. By the time the redwood cutters are 

 on the grouud the trees are well seasoned. About 

 the only purpose for which they are utilized, how- 

 ever, is for cushions to break the fall of the giant 

 redwoods. The clean trunk of the redwood from 

 which the bark has been removed will not burn in 

 the fiercest forest fire. Therefore, after they have 

 been felled and pealed, circles of forest fires are 

 set to clear the woods of all undergrowth, and 

 thus leave a clean floor for the logging operations. 

 In these clearing fires thousands of tan bark oak 

 are reduced to ashes. 



Investigators from the oflice of wood utili- 

 zation of the Forest Service recently took in hand 

 the problem of devising some means of utilizing 

 this timber. Shipments of the logs were sent to 

 the timber testing station at Berkeley. Cal., and 

 from there convenient quantities of the lumber 

 were sent to wagon factories, cooperage concerns 

 and furniture manufacturers in San Francisco. 

 Practically all of these manufacturers reported 

 that the lumber was well suited to their purposes 

 and that they could u^e it to advantage. 



It is not at all necessary in order to utilize a 

 tree for lumber that the bark be sacrificed, for 

 after pealing, deterioration can be prevented by 

 hauling the logs into piles and leaving them until 

 they can be hauled to sawmills. As the bark has 

 to be pealed in the spring, which is the most diflS- 

 cult of all periods of the year in that country for 

 logging, the two operations cannot be completed 

 simultaneously. 



For Vehicle Draftsmen 

 What will prove to be one of the most impor- 

 tant contributions to the recent literature of the 

 vehicle Industry has .iust been made by R. B. 

 Birge and Hugh M. Sargent, two skillful expo- 

 nents of the art of vehicle drafting. These gen- 

 tlemen have written and made the drawings for 

 an authoritative book on vehicle drafting, en- 

 titled "Practical Problems for Vehicle Draftsmen 

 and Mechanics." 



The subject matter covers a thorough explana- 

 tion of geometry so far as it relates to the draft- 

 ing of carriage and automobile bodies. This 

 leads to plain directions as to how to lay out 

 sweeps or curves, ovals, and the application of 

 the proportional triangle for laying out twisted 

 or winding surfaces. Next the construction of 

 joints is taken up. the laying out of propor- 

 tional corners, finding the dihedral angle, etc. 

 Coupe pillars, door framing, .glass frames, wheel 

 houses, mud guards, seat panels, and many other 

 features of vehicle design are carefully explained 

 and illustrated by original drawings. 



The book is 9% by 12 Inches, and is bound 

 in fine red cloth. It is published by Ware Bros. 

 Company, 1010 Arch street, Philadelphia, Pa. 



A Valuable Wood from the West Indies 



One of the best timber trees of the West Indies 

 is the Sideroxijln densiflorum, — Baker. This tree 

 is locally known as azeitona, which means olive. 

 It grows on practically all the islands in the Les- 

 ser Antilles, but is found chiefly on the higher 

 elevations, but very rarely in the lowlands. In 

 its natural state it is a tree of very considerable 

 proportions. The largest specimens are found in 

 the southern part of the Island of St. Thomas, 

 where individual trees occasionally measure about 

 one hundred and twenty feet in height and as 

 much as six feet in diameter. In the northern 

 and central portions of this island they are 

 smaller, and the average size does not exceed 

 ninety feet in height and tliree feet in diameter. 



The wood of the azeitona is of an excellent 



