HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



however, allotted to the production of the wood fluctuates with 

 the market value of the chemicals produced, and as the chemicals 

 are all now at a high value, we do not figure more than a return 

 of fifty cents per cord for stumpage over a long period of years. 



The requirements of wood for the retorts are very exacting. 

 Only the heaviest slabs and edgings can be used, and it is impos- 

 sible to use wood containing excessive doze or streaks of rot; 

 the wood must be split so that it does not exceed 6" in thickness 

 or 12" in width; the wood must be all hardwood and seasoned for 

 one year before it is ready for use. We have found serious diffi- 

 culty in getting out this wood by the old method of wood chop- 

 pers working in the timber. These difficulties are: scarcity of 

 expert labor and its inferior quality, the necessity of constant 

 and rigid inspection of the wood, and, after the wood is out, the 

 risk of fire during the year it has to stay in pile for seasoning. 

 The labor required to haul this wood and load on cars is as great 

 as the original chopping, and to these items of risk and expense 

 we add the necessity of leaving in our logging spurs for a year 

 longer than would be required for logging only, consequently 

 requiring a double amount of steel for this purpose. 



On account of these objections we early came to the conclusion 

 that it would be cheaper to manufacture the chemical wood at the 

 mill. We cut the chemical wood in log lengths — i. e., we log the 

 land clean, leaving only saplings under 5", dozey trees, and tree 

 tops. We bring this chemical wood to our mill with our merchant- 

 able logs, sorting at the mill and running the rough and small logs 

 to the wood mill, where they are butted to 50" and run through 

 split saws to be cut into sizes complying with retort wood speci- 

 fications. The heavy slabs and edgings are conveyed so as to 

 mix with the output of the wood mill, and the wood is piled on 

 cars at the mill and taken to the chemical wood yard, where it is 

 piled to dry and season. 



This process, being mixed with our regular operation, is ob- 

 viously one in which it is difficult to determine actual unit cost, 

 but we believe that this method is cheaper, and certainly more 

 reliable, than chopping in the woods, and it enables us to utilize 

 wood that the choppers are unable to split by hand. The wood 

 mill, however, is an additional investment. 



The operation of a retort chemical plant, while comparatively 

 simple, requires a few highly skilled men and great care in the 

 regulation of its operation. Our plant has an installation of one 

 1,500-gallon pump for pumping water for the condensing of the 

 vapors, and five loO-horscpower boilers for supplj'ing steam for 

 distillation. A switch engine is required for shifting the wood 

 cars and pulling the retort buggies. The labor required for all 

 departments aggregates ninety men. This includes extra force 

 in the woods, wood mill crew, wood handlers, firemen, and the men 

 handling the products in operating the plant. 



Products of the plant are approximately as follows: Per cord 

 of wood, 50 bushels of charcoal, 11 gallons of 82 per cent crude 

 alcohol and 160 pounds of acetate of lime. These products, with 

 the exception of charcoal, are easily marketable under normal 

 market conditions. The difficulty with the charcoal is that the 

 domestic market within shipping radius of our northern hardwood 

 operations is so narrow that it is impossible to depend upon it, 

 and our chief wholesale use of charcoal is in the manufacture of 

 charcoal iron. Owing to its low value and great bulk and its 

 tendency to spontaneous combustion, it is impracticable to ship 

 charcoal in bulk for any great distance by rail, so that the second 

 step in the process of utilizing chemical wood is the erection of 

 a blast furnace, unless there is already one near enough to the 

 operation to contract for its output. The other products, alcohol 

 and acetate of lime, while being capable of shipment for long 

 distances, and even available for export, are chemicals for which 

 there is not a very large demand in the arts. Wood alcohol has 

 to compete with the more cheaply manufactured and more widely 

 denatured grain alcohol, and only a slight stimulation to the 

 production of acetate immediately reduces its price. In the course 

 of the past five years the total value of the charcoal, alcohol and 

 acetate produced from a cord of wood has fluctuated from $6.00, 



with practically no demand, up to a total of .$11.00. Our costs 

 per cord, carbonized, are about $8.50. As the weight of a cord 

 of wood is approximately equal to a thousand feet of lumber, 

 and we are obtaining a cord of wood for each thousand feet of 

 lumber manufactured, it will be seen that we are utilizing twice 

 as much of the material in our hardwood forests as we were in 

 the manufacture of lumber alone. Our own plant is the minimum 

 in size that it is practical to operate; plants twice or three times 

 its size are better suited to economy of operation. It would 

 follow, therefore, that the requirements for even the smallest 

 chemical plant are as follows: First, a mill located near the 

 timber, the available hardwood timber to be at least twenty years' 

 supply at the ra:te of 10,000,000 feet of hardwood per year; second, 

 sufficient supply of running water; third, proximity of charcoal 

 iron furnace. 



With these conditions met, the mill in the woods can make as 

 great a profit out of its hardwood refuse as the mills in the 

 larger towns by disposing of their wood as fuel. 



Traffic Matters Around Memphis 



John W. McClure of the Bellgrade Lumber Company, James E. 

 Stark of James E. Stark & Co., and J. R. Walker, representatives, 

 respectively, of the Lumbermen 's Club of Memphis, the National 

 ■Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association and the Southern Hardwood 

 Traffic Bureau, have been in Washington recently, attending the con- 

 ference with the Interstate Commerce Commission in connection with 

 the subject of uniform methods of weighing lumber and other com- 

 modities and government supervision of this very important work. 

 The Jlemphis representatives at this conference have gone with in- 

 structions to advise the commission that they favor government super- 

 vision and the installation and operation of track scales because of 

 the belief on their part that the question of weights is as important a 

 factor in determining freight cost as rates themselves. The com- 

 mission has had this subject under consideration for a number of 

 mouths and asked for this final conference before handing down a 

 decision in connection therewith. 



May 14 has been set as the date for oral arguments in the 

 case of the Southern Hardwood Traffic Bureau against the Illinois 

 Central and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley roads, involving the pro- 

 posed advance of two cents per hundred pounds on hardwood lumber 

 shipments from Memphis and Mississippi points to New Orleans. 

 This advance w,as to have become effective April 1, but it has been 

 suspended by the commission until September 30. The Southern 

 Hardwood Traffic Bureau will be represented by J. E. Walker, attor- 

 ney for that organization, but a number of prominent members of 

 the hardwood fraternity at Memphis and in the Memphis territory 

 will go to Washington to participate. 



Another question involving rates on export shipments is that of 

 the Anderson-Tully Company et al vs. Morgan's Louisiana & Texas 

 Eailroad et al. This affects the movement of export shipments of 

 lumber from points west of the Mississippi river by way of New Oor- 

 leans. There have been several hearings before the Interstate Com- 

 merce Commission in connection with this case, in which the Southern 

 Hardwood Traffic Bureau asked the commission to hand down an order 

 forcing the railroads west of the Mississippi to issue through bills 

 of lading on such shipments. The western lines, with one exception, 

 announced that they would issue such through bills, but just at this 

 juncture the members of the New Orleans hardwood trade filed an 

 intervening petition in which they set forth the statement that the 

 issuance of such through bills would discriminate against them and 

 in favor of outside exporters. It is hoped by members of the trade 

 here that the hearing in this case, which comes up at Washington 

 May 10, wiU be the final one. Lumbermen here have been confident 

 aU the while that they would receive a favorable verdict at the 

 hands of the commission. Particular emphasis has been laid upon the 

 fact that no discrimination is made against exporters at New Orleans 

 by those living outside, as the former have the right to bring in 

 their lumber on through bills as well as the latter. 



