z4 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



and, as compared with the high-class timber that has already been 

 cut, is of a poorer quality. In quantity remaining it is infini- 

 tesimal as compared with the great area that has been stripped of 

 its growth. 



The beginning of the end of hardwood stunipage is in sight. 

 Good timber areas showing a reasonable stand of maple, birch, 

 basswood and elm in the North are very scarce and are held at 

 high prices. In the South desirable tracts of oak, poplar, hickory 

 and ash are equally unobtainable at anything save a very high 

 stumpage value. There remains in reasonable supply today con- 

 siderable red and tupelo gum stumpage and some other minor 

 varieties of woods. The country is in a decadence of good hard- 

 wood timber supply. 



When it can safely be estimated that fully twenty-five per cent 

 of the hardwood timber stand in most operating sections is still 

 left in the woods, unutilized, 

 and when fully forty per cent 

 of the total hardwoods manu- 

 factured are produced at or be- 

 low the price realized for them, 

 and that sixty per cent of the 

 total production has to bear the 

 burden of cost and profit, it is 

 perfectly safe to reiterate that 

 the general economic conditions 

 surrounding the hardwood indus- 

 try are not what they should be. 



If there was ever a time in 

 the history of a trade when 

 strenuous efforts ought to be 

 inirsued for the logical realiza- 

 tion of the now wasted residue 

 of the forest, and for working 

 out problems of utilization and 

 securing a profit from the forty 

 per cent of low grade now 

 produced, the time is now. 



There is no logical reason 

 why a good profit cannot be 

 secured from developing in a 

 wholesale way, at convenient 

 ■ points, large and comprehensive 

 dimension producing plants, 

 which shall take low - grade 

 stock as near points of produc- 

 tion as possible, kiln-dry it, and 

 reduce it to dimension material 

 suitable for the utilization of 

 the furniture car, automobile, 

 coffin, door, interior finish, floor- 

 ing and kindred trades. The saving in freights alone makes this 

 business so possibly profitable that it excels hardwood lumber 

 manufacture uuder the most favorable conditions. This business 

 cannot be conducted to a successful issue as the tail end of the 

 small sawmill operation, but it can be accomplished by grouping 

 low-grade stock at central and convenient points. At these plants 

 the good material contained in low-grade lumber could be put in 

 the best jiossible shape for remanufacturers, and the makers of 

 the various things out of woods could be easily educated to the 

 purchase of this class of stock. As a matter of fact the Record 

 office is constantly deluged with inquiries for high-class dimension 

 stock. This is a sub.iect of equal importance to stumpage owners 

 and lumber manufacturers and remanufacturers of hardwoods in 

 the thousands of uses for which it is employed. 



WHERE DO YOU STAND? 



The advocates of a universal standard of 

 hardwood inspection and measurement are 

 those people who desire to supply the specific 

 quality of lumber they sell, and to deliver a 

 thousand feet for ten hundred. 



Those who oppose a universal standard 

 are the class which deem it good business to 

 juggle grades, and hence fear the unifying of 

 hardwood codes of inspection and measure- 

 ment as being inimical to their business. 



Leaving business morals out of considera- 

 tion, is a union hardwood inspection code to 

 the best interests of sellers and buyers, or is 

 it wiser to maintain two, three or a half dozen 

 systems ? 



Isn't it time to find out which is just? 



Isn't it time to ascertain how the trade is 

 divided on the subject? 



It is up to lumber buyers to demand the 

 facts; it's up to the sellers to declare them- 

 selves. 



the manufacture of furniture in this city, and proved by actual 

 statistics that Chicago is by far the leading furniture producing city 

 of the world. The fact that other communities, such as Grand 

 Eapids, which are really centered around their furniture manu- 

 facturing plants, are more apt to come to mind upon the mention 

 of furniture production, is undoubtedly because those places are 

 famous only for such commercial activity, and are not rated, as 

 Chicago, as general industrial centers. The manufacturing interests 

 of Chicago, on the other hand, are of such vast proportions and 

 cover such a variety of lines that no one line stands out with any 

 prominence above the others. 



Nevertheless it is an actual fact that more furniture is made 

 and sold at wholesale in Chicago than in all the other cities of 

 the country combined. There are 220 factories, employing about 

 28,000 hands and producing goods in excess of $2.5,000,000 in value 



annually. But this city not only 

 leads in actual production; it 

 stands at the head also in gen 

 eral efficiency of sales system. 

 Here have been erected two im- 

 mense exhibition buildings in 

 which the products of the many 

 manufacturers are on exhibition 

 the year around. While the fur- 

 niture concerns in this city 

 actually turn out a greater 

 product than those of any other 

 community, the Chicago exhibit 

 forms only a small part of what 

 is shown to the visitor at the 

 Chicago market. Every factory 

 of standing in the United States 

 has its goods on display here, 

 and every art of buying, selling, 

 shipping or handling is offered 

 him to enable him to better get 

 in touch with the retail dealer. 

 The institution of these exhibi- 

 tion buildings marks the awak- 

 ening of a new epoch in trading. 

 It successfully does away with 

 the jobbers and middlemen and 

 saves the retailer his profit. In 

 addition, the exhibition build- 

 ings proper are supplemented by 

 commodious warehouses from 

 which the buyers can be sup- 

 plied immediately. 



Chicago Leads in Furniture Production 



A recent issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune contained exhaustive 

 information as to the rating of the many industries located in 

 Chicago. Among various others mentioned, it took up in detail 



Tupelo Gum 



Tupelo gum, black gum, or bay poplar, as it is indiscriminately 

 known in the region of its production, is attracting considerable 

 attention and securing an increased volume of demand over a 

 large section of the country, and notably in the East. The wood 

 is being substituted for red gum, and especially for the sap of 

 this wood, and in manj' cases for poplar. Since manufacturers 

 have learned how to manufacture and season this lumber, it is 

 now going into the market to the manifest satisfaction of buyers. 

 It is being employed in paint work for interior finish very gener- 

 ally, quite extensively as a flooring material, for drop and bevel 

 siding, and also for box and crate material. 



This wood grows intermingled with cypress and red gum along 

 the entire fringe of the lower Atlantic coast from the Dismal 

 Swamp to the South, and also in the hardwood and cypress regions 

 of the Gulf coast. While in quantity it does not aggregate as 

 much as red gum, still there is a good deal of it. The lumber 

 shows a large percentage of surface clear stock, largely sap, which 

 is the desirable portion of the wood, in that respect being very 



