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HARDWOOD RECORD 



was totally insufficient to keep the factions apart when wrongs, 

 real or imaginary, incited them to appeal to their "Winchester rifles 

 for redress or revenge. 



That is all a matter of history now, and the unpleasant incidents 

 are closed; for it is plainly the wish of all concerned that the truce 

 will never be broken again. Economic conditions are changing 

 rapidly in that region. I'ntil a few years ago it was a border land, 

 where customs had known little change in a century. The people 

 were strong in their likes and dislikes, and the faults and good 

 qualities of the parents were handed down to the children and to 

 the children's children. Few ideas filtered in from the outside 

 world, and the people took little interest in what happened else- 

 where. They were satisfied with what they had, and felt fully 

 able to take care of themselves. 



The state of society was not much different from that in Scot- 

 land and in many other regions of Europe hundreds of years ago 

 when the people were divided into clans, with comparatively little 

 intercourse between the difllersnt clans. Peace under such condi-' 

 tions was broken under very slight provocation, and hostilities 

 were bitter and of long standing. Clannish instincts bound families 

 together, and too often the clan moved as one man, particularly in 

 avenging an affront. 



Those people were slow to 'make friends with a stranger, but 

 when their confidence had been won it could be depended upon. 

 They had faults, but they had good qualities which were admired 

 by all who became intimately acquainted with the people in their 

 homes. They came from the very best stock in the world — the 

 same that fought at Bunker Hill, annihilated Ferguson's army at 

 King's Mountain, cut to pieces the British regulars at the Cowpens, 

 routed Cornstalk's Indian hordes at Point Pleasant, and passed 

 through the horrors of Valley Forge. 



The interesting point of view is that those clansmen among the 

 hills of the Kentucky-West Virginia border have changed little 

 since the Revolutionary war. Great transformations in customs 

 and ideas have occurred elsewhere; but the mountain fastnesses 

 shut changes out of the Big Sandy region where the Hatfields and 

 the McCoys lived; and there might be seen exactly the type of 

 people who recruited the armies of Morgan and Greene in the 

 darkest hours of the struggle for liberty. Defeat could not crush 

 them. As often as two or three of them could get together, they 

 would rally and renew the fight. At times their vengeance was 

 terrible, as when they hanged British officers for whipping a boy, 

 but they believed they were obeying the Scriptural law, "an eye 

 for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." 



Old customs and ideas are now passing away in the feud dis- 

 trict. Railroads have penetrated the region, and sawmills, coal 

 mines, coke ovens, and other industries have broken down the 

 barriers between those people and the outside world; but a few 

 examples of former times remain, and one of them appears in the 

 accompanying illustration. 



Discrediting a Great Wood 



SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW, SOMEBODY got the habit of call- 

 ing the printed imitation of quartered oak "American oak" 

 and "American quartered oak." This habit has spread until it 

 has become a more or less general one with retail furniture deal- 

 ers handling the cheaper lines, and the result is that today it is 

 having the effect of discrediting one of our greatest woods, the 

 real American oak. 



Oak has been so well known as a great wood and has been so 

 highly respected for ages that the name oak itself requires no de- 

 fense, no special lauding as it is known the world over. But 

 that the American species of it is being discredited by the above 

 type of advertising on the part of the furniture dealers is a matter 

 of concern to every one interested in oak and oak products. 



Some time ago with this subject in mind a representative of 

 Hardwood Record made protest to a furniture manufacturer, tell- 

 ing him that it looked like a shame alniost bordering on crime for 

 any one to make a printed imitation of quartered oak and then pass 

 it off as American oak, for to the ignorant it might give the im- 



pression that no true oak grows in America and the Yankees 

 simply make printed imitations of it as some of them once made 

 wooden nutmegs. 



"My dear sir," the furniture man replied, "life is too short to 

 spend wrangling over points of that kind." He went on to explaip 

 that somebody started the habit of calling maple and gum printed 

 in imitation of quartered oak "American oak," and it has now 

 become such a habit that it is rather useless and a waste of breath 

 to try to break it up. 



Whether or not this is the attitude of the majority of furniture 

 manufacturers is not known, but it should not be the attitude of 

 anyone interested in the welfare of the real American oak. It is 

 too good a wood and has served too great a purpose to be discred- 

 ited in this way. 



There are other good woods and the people working them have a 

 right to use them naturally and feature them under their own 

 name. Also thej' have a right to print them in imitation of some 

 other wood, but in so doing they should not seek to curry favor 

 for their own product by discrediting the original wood. 

 This thing of calling printed imitations American oak is a bad 

 habit that ought never to have been started, and somehow by some 

 means it ought to be stopped. 



A Start in the Right Direction 



THOSE MOST ACTIVELY' SPONSORING THE PROJECT to 

 establish a national exhibit of forest products may find some 

 satisfaction in the fact that such an exhibit, on a rather re- 

 stricted scale it is true, has just been made at Philadelphia. 

 The Pennsylvania Forestry Association was responsible for the 

 display which took place at Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia, May 

 20-24. This association has always sponsored the work of creating 

 interest in and providing information regarding logging, lumbering 

 and forestry methods in this country. 



The exhibit did not conform exactly to the ideas of those ad- 

 vocating a national exhibition, but it did embody some features 

 suggested — namely, there were shown certain features of logging 

 and sawmilling. In addition, there were numerous exhibits of vari- 

 ous woods of the country and of work done in forestry. 



The main point, however, was that the exhibit was decidedly a 

 success, which should augur well for a more elaborate display 

 covering an actual miniature demonstration of the many phases 

 of logging and lumbering which could not fail to be of intense 

 interest to the average citizen. The original sponsors of the idea 

 should be able to derive some encouragement from this fact. 



Lumber Output 



'T'HE GOVERNMENT REPORT of the production of lumber in 

 •^ the United States for 1911 has been published. It is similar 

 to reports which have been issued annually for several years and 

 are regarded as the most authentic statements to be had on the 

 subject. The figures for 1911 would have been fresher if they 

 could have been made public a year ago; but though somewhat 

 dela.yed, they are valuable and show several interesting things 

 relating to the lumber business. One is that no fewer than 20,000 

 sawmills cut less than a thousand feet each per week, averaged 

 for the year. Though the presence of these small mills was 

 recognized their output was ignored and the lumber which they 

 produced does not appear in the published report. The omission 

 was intentional, to save time and expense, and little was lost by it, 

 liecause the totals were very little affected. The statistics were 

 collected wholly by correspondence. 



On the face of the returns there was a decline of 3,000,000,000 

 feet, compared with the output of 1910, and the apparent falling 

 off occurred with nearly all of the woods. It is probable that if 

 full returns had been received, there would have been no decline 

 in the totals, and not much change in the individual species. No 

 wood formerly important in the production of lumber has disap- 

 peared from the returns, th\is showing that no source of supply 

 has been exhausted. It appears, further, that new woods, com- 



