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HARDWOOD RECORD 



ures are almost identical with figures for March of the preceding 

 year. A summary of the report shows that there is a decrease 

 of eleven per cent in the hemlock cut of March, 1913, compared 

 with March, 1912. The decrease in hemlock shipments was eighteen 

 per cent. The decrease in hardwood cut and hardwood shipments 

 were both one per cent. Thus the total decrease in cut in both 

 hemlock and hardwoods during the year was five per cent and 

 the decrease in shipments twelve per cent. 



Reports from Wisconsin and upper Michigan give an inter- 

 esting comparison of the estimated and actual log input for 

 1912-13. The estimated input of hardwoods during the 1912-13 

 season was 200,497,000 feet, while the feetage actually logged ag- 

 gregated 202,763,000. For hemlock the estimated cut was 307,200,- 

 000 and the actual cut 289,579,000. 



It can readily be seen that, according to the present outlook, 

 the total lumber production in Wisconsin and the upper peninsula 

 will be somewhat less in 1913 than in 1912. 



First Sale of Appalachian Timber 



THE FIRST SALE of the government timber included in the 

 Appalachian Forest Reserve created under the Week's law has 

 been filed at Washington. This sale involves a bill for seven 

 dollars' worth of logs purchased by a farmer for barn construc- 

 tion. While this amount is insignificant in itself, it really repre- 

 sents the exact average value of each of the acres of forest land 

 included in the Appalachian reserves. The total acreage of tim- 

 berland purchased up-to-date under the Week's law now aggre- 

 gates close to 500,000 acres. Considering that the first sale is 

 probably the smallest sale that will ever be made of that timber, 

 and that the average sale will bring in a far greater return than 

 this first purchase, the logical conclusion of the proposition is 

 manifest. 



It may be seen that while the government can afEord to pur- 

 chase this timberland and hold it subject to sale, no privately 

 owned corporation could do so. It is very probable that the time 

 is not so far distant as to be indiscernible when the total acreage 

 embraced in the Appalachian and White mountain reserves will 

 have been paid for by just such sales as this, and in the mean- 

 time the main purpose of the reserves is being accomplished, 

 namely, conserving the flow of water at the head waters of the 

 various streams emanating from that country. 



Possibilities of Free Advertising for Wood 



AT THE TIME OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE PLAN for 

 a country-wide advertising campaign for forest products, 

 Hardwood Record maintained that the most efficient and most 

 economical means of gaining the required publicity throughout 

 the country was by securing reading notices in the daily press and 

 current periodicals. Hardwood Record argued that the factor 

 contributing mainly to the supposed animosity on the part of the 

 editorial departments of the daily press toward lumber and wood- 

 working industries was their utter ignorance of the methods pur- 

 sued by these industries. It argued further that newspaper editors in 

 general did not wilfully plan to push the substitutes of lumber as 

 against the products of the forest, but that they had been given so 

 much more information in readable news form about lumber sub- 

 stitutes that they very naturally pursued a policy in favor of such 

 products. This publication maintained that by educating the daily 

 press to a general knowledge of the lumber business and by supply- 

 ing it with readable and newsy items and stories pertaining to 

 the lumber business and its products, that industry could obtain a 

 vast amount of advertising of a most valuable type at practically 

 no cost. 



These opinions have been borne out in innumerable cases which 

 have been brought to the attention of Hardwood Record through 

 its news clipping service, which supplies it with clippings from 

 papers all over the country. One of the most recent and most 

 favorable of these is from a prominent eastern daily paper. It 

 has allotted over a column to an explanation of one feature of 

 the lumber business and the article unquestionably contains some 



suggestions which should go a long way toward setting the lum- 

 ber business right in the minds of its readers. Regarding values 

 of lumber, it says: "Advancing values is an indisputable se- 

 quence to exhaustion or reduced production and, while it is essen- 

 tial that timber supplies shall be more sensibly conserved, it by 

 no means follows that the use of lumber shall be wholly displaced 

 or that there is not ample supply for many generations under just 

 usage, nor that prices are prohibitive, if the available newer 

 woods are introduced where the old and familiar woods have van- 

 ished from the markets. 



"The belief in the depletion of all lumber and the higher prices 

 that are continually discussed come from actual exhaustion of 

 well-known species and grades still in demand, and in ignorance 

 of or refusal to consider other supplies or woods of equal or better 

 values. There exists a pronounced obstinancy in some of the 

 older states, it is found, to believe that this can be true, yet there is 

 ready tvillingness to take up with materials that have aisolutely no 

 rccovimendatio7i beyond the maker's assurance." 



Articles of this nature can do a great deal toward favorably 

 impressing the public mind with the quality of lumber products 

 as against the products of competing industries. The fact is to 

 be deplored that there are not more of this character of articles 

 submitted to the daily press. 



Practical Figures on Hardwood Utilization 



THE MOST PERTINENT PHASE of the question of forest 

 conservation from the practical lumberman's viewpoint is 

 that of closer utilization of the various products of the forest, 

 where such close utilization can be eflfeeted with a profit. 



This issue of Hardwood Record contains a report of an address 

 delivered recently by a prominent northern manufacturer who 

 has gone deeply and exhaustively into the question, both as 

 applied to woods and to mill operations. The story is particularly 

 pertinent to northern manufacturers. 



The writer of this article, in estimating his percentage of loss 

 in, various operations, figured on the basis of the whole stand as a 

 unit, and instead of simply arriving at a percentage of waste 

 in an individual, average tree, he figured on the basis of percent- 

 age of weight in the aggregate stand. His conclusions coincide 

 very closely with Forest Service deductions, which are based on 

 percentage of waste resulting from each operation to an average 

 tree averaged from a grciit number of species and individuals. 



The figures taken from the Adirondaeks by the Forest Service 

 show that the loss in stumps left in the woods is two per cent; 

 the loss in tops, eighteen per cent of the total; in manufacturing 

 the lumber, sawdust or kerf effects a twelve per cent loss ; bark, a 

 ten per cent loss; slabs, eight per cent; edgings and trim, eight 

 per cent; in dressing, four per cent is eflfeeted through the 

 removal of shavings, so that the actual percentage of lumber 

 produced from the average, individual tree noted is only thirty-eight 

 per cent. 



Australian Experiments 



r^ )VERNMENT ACTIVITIES are popular in Australia now. There 

 ^^^ are state hotels, state butcher shops, and other enterprises, and 

 the latest announcement is that the government has entered the 

 sawmill and wood manufacturing business. In the case of the 

 hotel and meat business, the patronage is the general public, but 

 the manufacture of lumber and its products does not propose to go 

 that far at the start. The sawmUls will produce crossties for 

 state railways only, and it is expected that the output will be 

 about 1,500,000 a year. The furniture factory which was recently 

 bought for $45,000 will begin by making furniture for the public 

 schools. It is not claimed that it will be able to supply all needs, 

 but it will work a beginning. The minister of education for New 

 South Wales has figured to the cent what the saving will be on 

 each piece of school furniture manufactured. He estimates, for 

 instance, that $2.62 will be saved on each book case, $0.77 on a 

 small desk, $1.74 on a large one, $0.73 on a small table and $2.31 

 on the larger size. It will bo interesting to compare results with 

 predictions and see how nearly they agree. 



