34d_ 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Arkansas, and Ohio. New York state maintains its lead in the 

 eastern 3tates, though the loss there in 1911 was nearly 6,500,000 feet. 

 Maryland, among the eastern states, showed the largest gain as com- 

 pared with the preceding year. As a group, the Pacifie coast states 



have been steadilj' increasing their consumption of veneer wood, the 

 quantity used in 1909 being 10,426,000 feet, as compared with 

 11,578,000 in 1910, and 17,494,000 in 1911, which figures represent 

 liardwood veneers from the East and veneers of western softwoods. 



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Useless and Useful Exhibitions 



Lumbermen and users of wood have had their attention called 

 to the Panama Exposition at San Francisco which opens its doors 

 eighteen months hence. This show will probably surpass in size, 

 and should exceed in usefulness, any other world 's fair ever held. 

 Lumbermen can make it the greatest advertisement of their industry 

 on earth, or they can neglect it and derive little benefit therefrom. 



The exposition will be, primarily, an advertising medium, a trade 

 promoter, a business getter, a means of spreading practical and 

 useful information and of placing it before the public. The iudividual, 

 company, or association that neglects this opportunity to get before 

 the people in the best possible way, may wait a long time for another 

 chance like it. The acme of the world's competition for business 

 will be seen at San Francisco in 1915. 



Lumbermen may think they can remain passive without being 

 hurt. Possibly they can, but it is doubtful. One reason for the 

 doubt is that an array of wood substitutes, such as were never seen 

 before, will be there. Some of the brainiest inventor's of this or 

 of any other country will exhibit numerous makeshifts designed to 

 take the place of wood, and the genuine article will lose out if its 

 friends neglect it. The best showing possible should be made for 

 wood, but the best showing does not mean the most voluminous 

 aggregation, or the largest collection, but an exhibit selected with 

 judgment and displayed with common sense. 



In order to accomplish this, there are some things that should not 

 be done as well as some that should be. Those which ought not to 

 be done may bo named first. Former general plans of wood displays 

 at world's fairs should not be followed, but should be relegated to 

 the dead past and left there. A radical change in method is necessary. 

 The old plan might have answered some purposes in its day, but it 

 has had its day. 



Beginning with the Centennial and ending with Jamestown, the 

 overmastering idea in getting together every forest exhibit was to 

 saw ofE a few hundred logs — the more the merrier and the larger the 

 better — champer one face to show the grain, set the logs on end in 

 long, monotonous colonnades, tack on cards containing the trees' 

 names in Latin (which not one visitor in a thousand read or 

 understood), and that was the wood exhibit. Sometimes a few 

 freak growths were thrown in for good measure. 



Tree exhibits of that class have become almighty "stale, flat, and 

 unprofitable" in this country; but the worst of it is, the same 

 things will turn up again at San Francisco unless lumbermen provide 

 something better. Not only will something similar be on deck again, 

 but in many instances the identical things will be there. Wood 

 exhibits which have seen service in various great and small fairs 

 have not been destroyed, as a rule. They have been divided and 

 parceled out among states and communities and are only waiting 

 to be assembled for the next world 's fair. No one knows where all 

 the parts are, but they will be forthcoming. One bunch is known 

 to be in Chicago; another reposes in an attic of a Texas L^niversity 

 building; a third occupies part of an upper floor of Georgia's state 

 capitol; a ramshackle school house in the outskirts of Tampa, Fla., 

 holds a fourth; and thus others are dispersed far and near. 



Presently the call for exhibits will come from San Francisco, and 

 the old logs and blocks will be brought out for another parade. Dust 

 will be swept off, and the heterogenous crops of longhorn, shorthorn, 

 and horntail beetles will be shaken out, and the logs will once more 

 be set on end for millions of peo|de to look at. 



That must not happen. Can't we have something new? Must 

 we go on following the same old plan forever? The great wood-using 

 industries need a new deal. They want something that will represent 



the spirit of progress, not a collection of uninteresting stuff as dead 

 as Egyptian coflins. 



The wood exhibits at San Francisco should be finished products 

 rather than raw material. Actual uses should be shown — things 

 ready to sell and ready to use. The jeweler does not exhibit a 

 wheelbarrow load of ore; the china merchant a pile of clay; the 

 seller of silk, a worm and a mulberry leaf; but the jeweler shows, 

 his watches, rings, pins, and bracelets; the crockery merchant exhibits 

 dishes, bowls, and vases; the dealer in silk displays his cloths, 

 braids, and trimmings. They appeal directly to buyers. 



Should not dealers in wood commodities do the same? Cannot an 

 appeal to the users of wood be made by means similar to those 

 which the jeweler finds effective? 



It has been proved that it can be done, and one instance will 

 illustrate. Take the blockwood furniture of China. It is faultlessly 

 made, finely carved, and wherever it appears in an exhibit, it 

 attracts attention. Those who become interested, examine it carefully, 

 its beauty grows on them, and if their pocket books warrant an 

 indulgence of their tastes, they are liable to buy. The Chinaman 

 shows what he has to sell; he shows it to the best possible advantage, 

 and he gets prompt returns for his advertising. How much carved 

 furniture would he sell if he simply stood a sawed-off log on end 

 and tagged it Amerimnon latifolium'i 



Those who exhibit the products of wood (or any other products) 

 should do it as a business proposition, as a means to an end, and 

 that end should be to increase sales and make more money. An 

 exposition is not a museum. Some of the visitors attend for the 

 amusement they find, but the business man does not put an exhibit 

 there for the purpose of amusing anybody. He wants more sub- 

 stantial returns than that. 



The manufacturers of wood commodities have an opportunity to 

 appeal to the public in a manner that will bring results. They must 

 show what they have to sell — the articles themselves, not merely the 

 raw material. The richness of American woods in color, grain, figure, 

 luster, strength, hardness, and in many other properties and qualities, 

 should be displayed in the finished articles. Every manufacturer who 

 makes an exhibit ought to put forward the very finest articles that 

 he produces — a piece of furniture, panels, boats, vehicles, shuttles, 

 shingles, cooperage, paving blocks, handles, flooring, boxes, caskets, 

 canes, musical instruments. No matter what particular commoditj- it 

 may be, it should represent the best in its class. The idea should not 

 be to fill a certain allotted space in the easiest manner possible, but 

 to fill it with the best exhibit possible for the purpose of bringing 

 to the exhibitors the largest profit possible. 



The man who can produce something excellent can increase or even 

 create a demand for it. Millions of people hurry through an exposi- 

 tion and see little; but some study with care such things as interest 

 them, and it is the eye of these people that the exhibitor wants to 

 catch. When he has attracted their attention he is in a fair way to 

 get their business. 



Wood substitutes are in the field and fighting for the market. 

 Lumbermen and woodworkers must face the fight squarely. Lectures 

 and literature are all right in their place; but the best argument 

 in favor of wood is the wood itself — not raw, but ready for use, 

 every good point brought out where it can be seen, examined, and 

 appreciated. The National Lumber Manufacturers' Association has 

 appointed a special committee to look into the matter of a permanent 

 exposition, but the trade should co-operate to the greatest possible 

 extent along the lines suggested. This opportunity should not be 

 overlooked. 



