HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



just forget it. Suppose the copy is to interest a trim manufacturer. 

 Next day, get out that advertisement, imagine that you are a trim 

 manufacturer, and think of the special requirements of lumber 

 that you have to use in your work. Now read the advertisement. 

 Does it appeal to you? This is a splendid test for the strength of 

 your copy — you can thus pick the weak spots in it and change them 

 to add to the strong ones. 



Sequence of ideas — a word about that. It is only natural, when 

 we describe a car of lumber, to mention the amount, thickness, 

 grade, kind, describing the stock for widths, lengths, dryness, 

 texture, price, etc. That is the meaning of the term — sequence of 

 ideas. They are all in order as above, and are in their natural 

 order. If you mix them all up, you go from one thing that has no 

 bearing on the other, and the connection is difficult to get. When 

 this is the case, your copy becomes weak. It's just like a salesman 

 coming into your office, mentioning the thickness and amount of 

 stock, then the kind, and then making some remark about the 

 weather, then telling about the texture and making some other 

 remark foreign to the conversation. It works out the same in 

 every case, — so just keep your mind on the subject and write the 

 advertisement in logical order. When you have no special lot of 

 stock to offer, but all thicknesses, for iuslance, and you want to deal 

 only with the character and texture of the lumber, just go about 

 it in a natural way — the same as you would talk about it to one of 

 your customers. Then work it up from that, bringing in as many 

 points as possible but following out the ideas enumerated above. 



A lumber manufacturer who, becoming quite interested in adver- 

 tising, recently asked the writer, after seeing the results of the 

 latter 's sales-letters, the records of which are kept on ' ' Check- 

 sheets, " to tell his method of writing. That question has been 

 answered before, and the method is simple. First, know all about 

 your goods and their value — know this thoroughly. Second, "talk" 

 your letter, imagining that your stenographer is the buyer you are 

 addressing and that 3'ou are trying to sell the latter this car of 

 lumber. In connection with this matter, there is one important 

 point that should not be overlooked. Never use the pronoun "I" 

 unless you are on intimate terms with the buyer you are addressing, 

 or unless you are a "one-man" concern with no "company" on 

 the end of the title. "We" is always correct and sounds business- 

 like — it also carries more weight with it than I. The use of "I" 

 in the case of a big concern doesn't look good — it seems to the 

 reader of the letter that there is something wrong with the organi- 

 zation, and there are likely to be a bunch of "I's" in the concern, 

 which is detrimental. It 's like when you hear a salesman speak 

 of a concern as ' ' they, it or thein ; ' ' you know right away that 

 something is wrong somewhere — they either are mean in their ways 

 or their organization is poor. Any man who speaks of it as "we 

 can do this," "we can furnish," has a good organization which 

 treats everyone fair, and you can rest assured of fair treatment 

 and good goods. The concern in the first illustration won't last 

 long — it is as one of the writer's friends says, "Slated for the 

 rocks.' ' 



When you have a standard product — that is, if you make only 

 poplar, for instance, — it is well to run advertisements in series 

 dealing with but one or two selling points each time the advertise- 

 ment appears. This will keep you hustling for new selling points. 

 Put it up to your salesmen; have a prize offer, a small one like a 

 box of cigars, for three good selling points. Let one of your cus- 

 tomers lie the judge — just ask him off hand. That will get all the 

 "boys" interested in the work and you'll be surprised at the 

 interest they will take and how much closer it will "knit you" all 

 together. For an example, a Milwaukee concern some time ago 

 put out a series of advertisements about their "Steel Polished 

 Perfection Maple Flooring." Each advertisement showed one of 

 the pictures of the making of the floor, and the pictures as a 

 series showed the whole process from the cutting down of the trees 

 (showing the axeman) to the laying of a floor by the carpenters. 

 Each man in the advertisement "talked" his part of the work 

 to you and each advertisement represented mighty strong copy. 

 The writer of that series of advertisements knew that it would be 



impossible to embrace in one advertisement aU the selling points 

 of that flooring. He knew also that, even if he did use a big space, 

 people would tire of reading it before they were half through. So 

 this scheme was hit on and a man naturally looked for these ads 

 whenever the paper appeared. It is a great mistake to try to put 

 a whole lot of selling points in one advertisement. Readers take 

 quickly to a series of advertisements and get to look for them. 

 When you get them interested in this way, you couldn't want any- 

 thing better. You 've gone a long way, in fact, toward making them 

 customers. 



Gravity Lumber Conveyors 



The inquiry B 440 in the April 25 issue of Hardwood Recced 

 which asked for information about labor-saving devices, making 

 inquiry for a ball-bearing runway that v.'ill carry boards for 100 feet 

 with a simple push, brmgs up again the question of gravity con- 

 veyors for lumber which has been discussed in these columns in 

 the past, but perhaps not given as much attention as it deserves. 

 There are some gravity, ball-bearing conveyors in use — one set 

 at least that the writer has seen in the lumber yard of a hardv.ood 

 flooring company at Louisville. These are simply small ball-bearing 

 rollers carefully mounted m angle-bar steel frames made up in 

 sections ten or twelve feet long so that they can be hooked together 

 and extended to whatever distance is desired and in whatever 

 direction. A row of these sections strung out will serve the very 

 purpose the inquirer asked about, that is, they are so light running 

 that they wiU carry a board one hundred feet easily with a little 

 push, or a slight slant will cany a board with its own weight from 

 the car where it is being unloaded to any place in the yard. These 

 carriers were developed right in the yard of the flooring company 

 in mind, and were made under the instruction by the Alvey Ferguson 

 Company of Louisville and the Dow Iron & Wire Works of the 

 same place. They are simply modifications of some forms of fairly 

 well-known gravity conveyors. The Alvey Ferguson Company, for 

 example, has a patent roller conveyor with concave rollers, that is, 

 the rollers are smaller in diameter at the center than at the ends, 

 which is the patented feature. Usually the rollers in this conveyor 

 are set close together for the purpose of carrying boards in the 

 warehouse. There is another type of conveyor on somewhat the 

 same order except that it uses straight-face rollers made of metal 

 instead of wood and placed very close together. This is the Matthews 

 gravity carrier, made by the Matthews Gravity Carrier Company, 

 Ellwood City, Pa. It is extensively used for conveying biick by 

 gravity from kilns to loading points and it is made in sections so it 

 can be put up and taken down and extended in any direction. 



The lumber gravity conveyor has fewer rolls in it, they being 

 placed at something like two feet apart and being sixteen or eighteen 

 inches long. The exact distance apart or the exact length is not 

 a very important matter and may be varied to suit the ideas of 

 different people. There are certain things about the construction, 

 however, that must have very careful attention to give satisfaction. 

 In the case referred to above the angle-bar steel frames are very 

 thoroughly braced, so that they will retain their shape, and the 

 rollers are very carefully mounted and are kept perfectly square 

 with the frame. This is the important part in a conveyor of this 

 kind. If one or two of the rolls are the least bit out of square 

 they will have the effect of carrying the lumber to one side so that 

 it will fall oft before going a great distance on such a runway. 

 Given rolls carefully aligned, however, and frames so thoroughly 

 braced that they will hold their alignment, will carry lumber from 

 one hundred feet to one hundred yards without it tumbling off. 



These are labor-savers where their use is practical, and where 

 the lumber is to be moved in a straight line with a slight incline 

 or down grade. It is not practical to turn corners with a conveyor 

 of this kind as with a brick conveyor or other conveyor handling 

 short stock. The stock must move in a straight line, but just a little 

 incline will carry lumber a great distance, or even placed level, one 

 can, by giving a board a slight push, send it one hundred feet or 

 more. 



