12 



THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



direct with the farmers aud do not expect 

 a great volume of business during harvest 

 time, the farmers usually being short of 

 cash at this season and deferring their pur- 

 chases until they obtain returns from their 

 new crop. Both of these houses report an 

 unprecedented business, not only for this 

 season, but for any season, which indi- 

 cates that the farmers do not need to wait 

 until after harvest to make their cash pur- 

 chases. 



We consider the business situation as 

 thoroughly sound at the present time as it 

 has ever been. The demand for goods in 

 all lines continues strong, with the differ- 

 ence, compared with last year, that sup- 

 plies are more ample and in some hues 

 prices are slightly lower. As stated in our 

 la.st issue some slight reaction in prices 

 ^.a<, to be expected, as they cannot con- 

 tinue to advance indefinitely, nor is it de- 

 sirable that they should. Prices in a num- 

 ber of lines are higher than conditions 

 seem to warrant and a reaction will not 

 be an unmixed evil. 



The lumber business is following the 

 general tendency of trade and in some lines 

 there has been a slight decline from the 

 bigh prices of the past six months, but 

 nothing of any material, consequence. 

 This is a period when a slight let-up m 

 demand is to be expected. 



Yellow pine is considerably lower than 

 it was a few months ago, but in almost all 

 lines of hardwood the prices are well main- 

 tained. 



In poplar the fact that the poplar as- 

 sociation is strong and has advanced iJrices 

 sharply has tended to cheek business to 

 some extent. Whether the trade will be- 

 come accustomed to the new prices aud ac- 

 cept them remains to be seen. The offer- 

 ings of plain oak are becoming more plenti- 

 ful and prices somewhat easier. Quar- 

 ter-sawed oak retains its strong posi- 

 tion. In northern woods the entire line is 

 strong, at a reasonable advance over 

 prices of a year ago. 



Taken altogether the general business 

 situation is such as to warrant nothing but 

 confidence, but as stated in previous issues, 

 the market will probably not be an ad- 

 vancing market and it is a good time for 

 conservative action. 



THE NEW BtriiES. 



We have received copies of the newly 

 revised inspection rules of the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association and have 

 given them careful consideration. They 

 are issued in a neat and serviceable 

 pamphlet, containing, in addition to the 

 rules, the plan of the inspection bureau, 

 list of members, officers and standing com- 

 mittees. 



The rules themselves have been revised 

 in a most thorough manner, the form and 

 phraseology made consistent throughout, 

 and in our opinion are as near perfection 

 as they can be brought, both in form and 

 substance. Each ruic is comi)Iet(' in itself 



and is so clear and plain that it would 

 seem that the dullest inspector sliould 

 be able to understand them. 



In our opinion this .set of rules is a 

 finality, and we predict that there will, 

 never again be a general revision of the 

 inspection rules of the National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association. Slight changes will 

 be made from time to time, in the matter 

 of securing greater deaniteness, but the 

 grades themselves will not be tampered 

 with to any extent, nor should they be. 

 Practical lumbermen devised these rules 

 with only one object in view, that of mak- 

 ing them conform to the custom of the 

 trade, and they should not be changed. It 

 really does not matter so much what 

 grade the rules make, as the price will ad- 

 just itself to the rules. It was mnSb. 

 easier, however, to change the rules to fit 

 the custom than to change the custom to 

 fit the rules, and now that this has been 

 done and the rules have been made so ex- 

 plicit and easily understood, tliey should 

 be let alone. 



There will undoubtedly be much criti- 

 cism of the rules on the part of the buyers 

 of lumber, because of the grade produced 

 being so low. but such criticism is not, we 

 believe, generally justified. The trade had 

 gotten into a foolish way of making rules 

 far above the practice in inspecting lum- 

 ber They were above the people's heads 

 and 90 per cent of the business of the 

 country was done on a much lower plane. 

 These rules are made to do business upon. 

 They will produce as good grades as most 

 people make. They fairly represent the 

 prevailing custom of the trade, and are 

 such that the buyers and ^sellers may all 

 unite upon without makin'g any consider- 

 able change in any instance. 



They represent four years of hard work 

 on the part of the National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association to bring the trade to- 

 gether on a set of rules that would cover 

 the entire hardwood territory. How 

 much work and thought has been put upon 

 them only those who have been actively 

 engaged in the work of bringing them to 

 their present form can understand. There 

 is not a sentence, phrase or clause but has 

 been most tlioroughly discussed and con- 

 sidered, time after time, by men as prac- 

 tical as any in the trade. They have been 

 formulated in a spirit of perfect fairness, 

 the only motive being to produce a set of 

 rules upon which the trade could unite 

 aud do business. 



The work of the National association as 

 embodied in these rules has been a great 

 work, the most important ever undertaken 

 by any lumber association in the hard- 

 wood ti-ade. When that association was 

 organized there were at least a dozen sets 

 of hardwood inspection rules in the United 

 States, not one of which came anywhere 

 near representing the actual grading upon 

 which business was done. The conse- 

 quence was that no one sold on rules, ex- 

 ceiJt he was comiJcUed to do so, and when 

 he was so compelled, he invariably got 



the worst of it. Such conditions left the 

 way open for all kinds of sharp practices, 

 and were a premium on rascality. 



Of all the dozen sets of rules there was 

 no disinterested application or interpreta- 

 tion. Tlie shipper who was caught where 

 he had to sell on those rules took what 

 he could get and made the best of it. Un- 

 der such conditions the hardwood trade 

 had grown to be almost disreputable. The 

 hardwood lumbermen were not considered 

 as being in the class with other lumber- 

 men and were in most cases looked upon 

 as belonging, to one of two classes, either 

 the sharper or his victim, a knave or a 

 fool. 



The root of all the evil lay in the unsat- 

 isfactory conditions of hardwood inspec- 

 tion and the good men of the trade, those 

 who wished to see the business made 

 legitimate, set to work to coiTect the in- 

 spection evils, feeling that once the inspec- 

 tion of hardwood lumber was placed upon 

 a reliable and uniform basis, all other 

 abuses would correct themselves. How 

 hard these men worked to overcome the 

 Ijrejudiees and animosities which had 

 been growing stronger and more bitter for 

 a quarter of a century, very few men in 

 the trade appreciate. That they have done 

 so well is a matter of congratulation. 



The Hardwood Record takes a personal 

 pride in this little pamphlet. From the 

 moment the work was undertaken until 

 the present time it has been its only con- 

 sistent supporter among the lumber 

 papers. Through good and evil repute, 

 through sunshine and shadow, through 

 discouragement and what at times looked 

 like defeat, it has steadily and strongly 

 supported the National Hardwood Lumber 

 Association. Its motives have been mis- 

 understood and it has lost much business 

 it miglit have had by pursuing a more 

 vacillating policy, but through it all the 

 Hardwood Record has never wavered. It 

 has always believed that by promoting 

 uniform inspection it was doing the best 

 thing that could be done for the hard- 

 wood trade and such influence as it had 

 has been used steadily in that direction. 

 AVhat the value of its unwavering sup- 

 port has been to the movement is for 

 others to say. However that may be, we 

 consider the work practically done and we 

 turn the pages of the little pamphlet with 

 serene content. 



We sny that ^^•e consider the work prac- 

 ticall.v completed, not because the rules are 

 in general use as yet, but because the bal- 

 ance is only a question of time. The rules 

 speak for themselves and such opposition 

 as still exists to the National Hardwood 

 Ijumber Association will certainly fall to 

 the gi-ound, because it has no basis in 

 truth or justice. There are those among 

 the buyers who will declare that the 

 rules are the rules of the manufacturers 

 of lumber, and there are those among the 

 manufacturers who maintain that tliey 

 are the rules of the buyers of lumber, but 

 such criticism is the liest evidence in the 



