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Copyright, The Hardwood Company, 1922 



Published in the Interest of the American Hardwood Forests, the Products thereof, and Logging, Saw 

 Mill and Woodworking Machinery, on the 10th and 2Sth of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Edwin W. Meeker, Vice Pres. and Editor 

 H. F. Ake, Secretary-Treasurer 

 Lloyd P. Robertson, Associate Editor 



Seventh Floor, Ellsworth Building 

 537 South Dearborn St., CHICAGO 

 Telephone: HARRISON 8087 



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Vol. LIII 



CHICAGO, OCTOBER 10, 1922 



No. 12 



Review and Outlook 



A Few Lights on the Hardwood Tangle 



IT WAS UNFORTUNATE, though unavoidable, that the promul- 

 gation of the lumber standardization program in its proposed 

 application to hardwood merchandising should have caused the 

 present bitter controversy within the hardwood industry. This re- 

 action is unfortunate because the principle around which the 

 standardization program is built has been distorted and apparently 

 lost sight of, at least within certain factions. It would appear 

 timely to emphasize that lumber standardization is not concerned 

 with the hardwood industry or with any other single phase of 

 lumbering, nor is it aimed at any agency within the hardwood 

 industry. 



What brought forth the standardization program? Not the ini- 

 tiative or the ambitions of any indivdual, or group of men, but 

 rather that frequently confessed lack of merchandising sense which 

 has for years characterized the lumber industry. This and a gen- 

 eral popular misunderstanding of terms, facts and conditions as 

 they pertain to Itunbering. The public misunderstands and the 

 public consequently reviles and holds in contempt lumbering, the 

 second largest of our national industries. The public sees beautiful 

 forests cut and believes that the resulting accumulation of un- 

 sightly slash in the place where beautiful trees once stood is wanton 

 waste. It does not understand that it is economically impossible 

 to market the remaining debris and that to clear and burn it often 

 represents an investment equal to the value of the timber. 



The home builder is showing greater interest each year in the 

 lumber he pays for in the construction of his house. The lumber- 

 man has until now made little effort to make it possible for the 

 home builder to understand his building lumber. The standardiza- 

 tion program as applied to construction woods contemplates an 

 alignment of those woods with structural and engineering data 

 that will eliminate such misunderstanding and enable the home 

 builder to choose on a basis of knowledge. In hardwoods, the pub- 

 lic misunderstands both as laymen and fabricators of hardwood 

 products and so can not appreciate why, with so much of the hard- 

 wood tree wasted in the woods and in the factory, he is compelled 

 each year to pay at a proportionately higher rate for the hardwood 

 he consumes. 



The fabricator of hardwood products understands in the main 

 only that he can not with present high manufacturing costs afford 

 to pay for the waste in material and the labor cost involved in 

 working that waste as it develops from the lower grades now on 



the market. He, therefore, in increasing number demands the best 

 grade just as with decreasing quality of logs the best is developed 

 in decreasing percentage. In short the nub of this whole standard- 

 ization question is that grades of lumber, inclusive of both soft 

 woods and hardwoods, shall in the future represent specifications 

 and not, as at present, merely measures of log value. 



Grades as they function today are obviously but an evolution 

 brought about from a rudimentary beginning through trading be- 

 tween buyer and seller, but always, as originally, based on such 

 arbitrary specitieations as in the beginning enabled the distributor 

 to put some measure of value on the log product. 



In the beginning nothing but clear, sound stock was merchant- 

 able. Then as the industry developed and extended, it was not so 

 easy to obtain perfect logs. The manufacturer and the distributor 

 found that there were certain avenues of sale for those products not 

 quite so good as the perfect stock, if they were sold at a slightly 

 less price. So they made crude classifications in order to know 

 somewhat of the trading value of what the log produced. These 

 crude classifications were further evolved in the different markets 

 until finally they became so complex as to cause more or less chaotic 

 conditions. Finally the various grading formulae were merged into 

 one general classification which, however, was still but the outcome 

 of the original plan of classifying merely as a measure of log value. 

 That basic principle has continued from then on and today repre- 

 sents the basis of those classifications under which practically all 

 lumber is sold. There are some notable exceptions, but this state- 

 ment holds good in the main. 



It is the recognition of the fact that this system is basically in- 

 correct that has brought about the urge towards a standardization 

 program and the general adoption of the principles enunciated in 

 the beginning of the notable movement. It is merely a frank 

 statement of fact to say that hardwoods are included in the cate- 

 gory above described. 



Eecent antagonistic pronouncements have declared the program 

 opposed to simplification because it includes provisions for scien- 

 tific grading. Hardwood Record fears that such utterances are 

 the result of confusion of the issue; of failure to understand that 

 grading and inspection represent two distinct factors. 



Grading of any commodity, if correctly applied, is the determina- 

 tion of specifications for that commodity according to the manner 

 in which the commodity is to be utilized in its respective places of 

 consumption. Inspection is merely the means of checking that com- 



