FINE FLOORING PLANT IN WHICH THE FORKED-LEAF OAK 

 BRAND IS PRODUCED. 



manufacturing plant, and to build an equipment that was in advance 

 of any other in existence, aiming to produce from its splendid virgin 

 harduood forest a sii|icrii)r luinlier and hardwood flooring product. 



Primarily it secured the seivices of Howard W. Coles as general 

 manager and gave him carte blanche to build the best plant for hard- 

 wood manufacture in existence. Mr. Coles has had a long and varied 

 experience in hardwood and hardwood flooring production, and has 

 acquired a reputation in this line second to that of no man in the 

 country. 



The new mill which Mr. Coles has constructed is equipped with a 

 lieavy Filer & Stowell band and band resaw, and all the most modern 

 labor-saving devices. The mill has a capacity of from 50,000 to (10,000 

 feet of lumber daily. The logs are handled from the cars into im- 

 mense roll ways by the aid of the Fitzgibbons & Krebs elevating 

 traveling derrick. 



The company has an extensive hardwood area of which nearly 

 eighty per cent is genuine forked-leaf white oak of the highest type, 

 the remainder consisting of an excellent quality of red oak, red gum 

 and ash. The logs are of medium size, with small, tight heart, and 

 are remarkably sound. 



From the sorting chains the assorted lumber is delivered to dollies, 

 and there transferred to a series of platforms interlaced with transfer 

 tracks, on which the lumber is piled onto dry-kiln trucks. This series 

 of platforms and tracks provides for the loading of 100 trucks of 

 lumber of various kinds, grades and thicknes.ses at one time. These 

 load units, of about 3,000 feet each, are then forwarded to a 

 Kraetzer preparator, a steam cylinder heretofore described in these 

 columns, in which the lumber is treated with steam under pressure. 

 This Kraetzer-euring of lumber insures quick and accurate seasoning, 

 and eliminates all j.ossibility of seasoning defects, stick-marking, 

 retain, cheeks and splits. The units are drawn from the steaming 

 cylinder and forwarded on their trucks to an extensive system of 



THE FIRI.II:. 



I'KV KILNS OF THE SALINE RIVER HARDWOdl) 

 COMPANY, PINE BLUFF, ARK. 



storage tracks, from the far end of which the seasoned lumber is 

 either loaded onto cars for shipment or still farther advanced through 

 a dry kiln to take out the remainder three or four per cent moisture 

 required, and then delivered by a chain transfer to the oak flooring 

 plant just completed. 



The entire system is one in which, after the log is in the mill, the 

 resultant lumber product is handled entirely on wheels until it is 

 loaded onto cars either in the form of lumber or flooring. It is fully 

 believed that the new plant of the Saline Eiver Hardwood Company 

 will develop a lesser cost showing in lumber manufacture and han- 

 dling than any other hardwood plant in the country, and beyond that 

 it is equally certain that its product is of such a remarkably high tyjje 

 that it will command the trade of discriminating buyers. 



Let it be noted that here is a hardwood plant producing well 

 towards 1,.500,000 feet of lumber a month that has no lumber yard 

 per se, and that the total necessary holding of stock in its storage 

 yard, carrying lumber on wheels, is only about one month 's cut, be- 

 cause the lumber is then ready for sale and shipment, or ready to be 

 forwarded to the flooring plant. 



A SL'ore or more of other institutions are handling a part of their 

 lumber output in this way, but this is the first one to completely 

 eliminate the old-fashioned lumber yard with its costly and constantly 

 decaying lumber foundations, alley planking, and tremendous cost and 

 waste in pile roofing and stickers. The item of piling sticks alone, 

 between carrying 2,000,000 feet and 10.000,000 feet of lumber in stock 

 at one time, is no inconsiderable factor in cost. 



This plant has been in operatioii less than three months, and Man- 

 ager Coles is now shipping forked-leaf white oak of full thickness, 

 without seasoning defects, six weeks from the saw, at less than four 

 pounds weight, which is a reduction of more than one-third in weight 

 in the time named, and less weight than can be secured on untreated 

 oak eight months on sticks. 



The dry-kiln capacity of the plant is only of moderate size, because 



GEXICUAL \IEW 



OF PREPARATOI; LdAI'lM. 

 I'REPARATOR IN DISTANCE 



I'l,A-|-l-.'il;)I. WITH DETAIL 



OF SAW.MILL. POWER HOUSE. SORTING SHED AND 

 CORNER OF PREPARATOR LOADING TRACKS. 



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