HARDWOOD RECORD 



29 



Builders of Lumber History 



NUMBER \wV 



(Sec Portrait Svpplcmcnt.) 



Oue of the most euergetic, astute aud sue- 

 cessful hardwood lumbernuni in the United 

 States is Benjamin F. Duhveber of Cincin- 

 nati, 0., whose i)ortrait forms the supplement 

 to this issue of Haudwood Eecokd. 



ilr. Dulweber was born at Covington, Ky., 

 a suburb of Cincinnati, thirty-three years ago. 

 His father, John Dulwebev, for many years 

 was engaged in a comparatively small and 

 local way in the hardwood business at Cincin- 

 nati, and at his demise B. F. Duhveber man- 

 aged it for his mother until 1904, at which 

 time he purchased the business, obtaining the 

 entire ownership. The enterprise has been con- 

 tinued since that time, until recently, under 

 the style of John Dulweber & Co. Recently, 

 however, for the purpose of permitting his 

 brothers, J. E. Dulweber aud John Dulweber, 

 and several other trusted employes to partici- 

 pate in the profits, the concern has been reor- 

 ganized as the John Dulweber Company. 



B. F. Dulweber is president and treasurer 

 of the organization; J. E. Dulweber is vice- 

 president and F. F. Flanery secretary. These, 

 with Edward Ehme, J. X. Powers and John 

 Dulweber constitute the board of directors. 



At the death of Mr. Dulweber 's father, the 

 business as before noted was a small and sim- 

 ply a local one, but during the succeeding 

 years Mr. Dulweber has gradually expanded 

 it until his sales now extend over the entire 

 country. It often happens that two weeks' 

 shipments of The John Dulweber Company 

 exceed the average annual business done when 

 he originally took hold of the enterprise. 



For years Mr. Dulweber was purely a job- 

 ber in hardwoods, but with succeeding years 

 he has changed the policy of the instituliou 

 until now the concern produces fully ninety 

 per cent of the stock which it sells. 



Mr. Dulweber is essentially a student of 

 hardwood lumber affairs and closely analyzes 

 every detail of manufacture, sale, stock con- 

 ditions, market situation, inspection and all 

 other features pertaining to a careful and 

 conservative handling of the business. Among 

 his associates he is regarded as an expert 

 ' ' trader. ' ' He knows with accuracy the 

 character of timber growth in the entire 

 South-country and makes his timber and log 

 purchases with rare judgment. Likewise, he 

 is thoroughly posted on requirements in every 

 line of hardwood utilization, and is able to 

 supply the wholesale consuming trade with 

 lumber which thoroughly meets the require- 

 ments of the business involved. 



Mr. Dulweber is a genius for detail ami 

 keeps close in hand every feature of his 

 business. It goes without saying that he is a 

 tremendous worker. At the same time, he 

 finds leisure from his arduous duties to as- 

 sist in every movement that is iuaugurated 

 for the betterment of the hardwood trade. 

 as well as for the well-being of the general 

 business of the city of Ciniinnati. 



BENJAMIN F. DULWEBER 



He is a member of tlie Business Men's 

 Club, the Cincinnati Automobile Club, the 



queen City Furniture Club, the Hamilton 

 County Golf Club, the North Side Business 

 Club, and several other organizations. He 

 has served as president of the Lumbermen's 

 Club of Cincinnati aud is now director of 

 the Liberty Banking & Savings Company, 

 the Ohio Shippers' Association, the Cincin- 

 nati Eeceivers' & Shippers' Association and 

 Cincinnati Associated Organizations. 



Mr. Dulweber was married in 1900 to Miss 

 Nannie Noble, and one child — a boy of five 

 years — has blessed the union. Mr. Dulweber 

 alleges the lad is the greatest boy that ever 

 happened. 



The John Dulweber Company carries at 

 its Cincinnati yard a very comprehensive 

 stock, made up chiefly of southern woods, 

 which involves practically every variety of 

 American hardwoods, and at its various saw- 

 mill plants and grouping yards in the South 

 lias large and varied stocks. There are few- 

 hardwood houses in the country which pro- 

 duce and market more lumber than The John 

 Dulweber Company, and it reflects no little 

 credit on B. F. Dulweber that ho has devel- 

 oped this business from one of minor im- 

 portance to its present scope and standing. 



One of Mr. Dulweber 's pet hobbies is thc- 

 subject of transportation. Of this topic he 

 has been a close student for years and has 

 contributed a good deal of valuable litreature 

 on the subject for the benefit of the Cin- 

 cinnati Lumbermen's Club, and other Cincin- 

 nati organizations. He is so thoroughly versed 

 on this subject as to be regarded one of the 

 foremost authorities in the country. 



Mr. Dulweber has an extremely pleasing 

 personality, and as must be deduced from 

 this brief and inadequate sketch, he is an ex- 

 ceedingly aggressive man. He has matured 

 and well defined opinions on every phase of 

 the hardwood industry, and has no hesitancy 

 in giving expressions to them at all suitable 

 times. 



Biltmore Forest School Doings for Tebruary 



The month of February, spent in the German 

 woods, has treated us to the finest winter weather 

 imaginable : so that we could take long tramps 

 through the woods, visiting many interesting 

 sections. Worthy of note, particularly, were 

 excursions to the forests of Witteldick, Eberstadt, 

 Heidelberg, Ileppenheim. Woifskehlen and Lam- 

 pertheim. 



At jMitteldick we saw some five acres of pine 

 thickets which had been burnt recently ; this is 

 the largest forest eon(3agration which has "raged" 

 in this section for many a year ! Interesting at 

 Milteldick wore some plantations of Michigan 

 while pine, of Sitka spruce and of white oak. 



At Eberstadt there is a pine range in the 

 plains where the yellow pine used to be regen- 

 erated from self-sown seed. It is customary 

 iiow-a-days to leave some twenty yellow pino 

 "standards" on every acre — not so as to seed 

 the ground — but to allow the trees to grow mlo 

 extra heavy timber. In the hill section of Eber- 

 stadt the former beech woods are being gradually 

 converted into mixed stands of yellow pine. 



white pine. Douglas flr and spruce wherever the 

 soil is poor ; and into mixed stands of chestnut, 

 maple, walnut, ash and oak wherever the soil 

 is good. The forester takes care particularly of 

 the moisture in the soil, realizing that tree 

 growth depends largely on the water capacity 

 iif tlie soil. As a consequence, horizontal ditches 

 lire found in the woods, meant to retain the 

 moisture and meant to prevent surface drainage. 



The trip to the ITeidelberg woods was very 

 interesting for the reason that it illustrated the 

 damage done by snow and ice in cultured for- 

 ests. In one night, quite recently, on a tract 

 of some GOO acres, no less than 250,000 cubic 

 feet of small saplings and poles were killed — 

 broken at the root or broken in the crown — by 

 a heavy load of snow and ice hanging in the 

 tops. Fortunately, the sm<all material obtain- 

 al)le from the thickets .and pole woods thus 

 afflicted is salable near Heidelberg. It is note- 

 worthy that the white pine has suffered but 

 little from snow, whilst the yellow pine has been 

 badly killed or crippled. 



At Heppenlieini we were shown tlic conversion 

 on a large scale of ancient beech woods into 

 mixed stands of conifers and valuable hardwoods. 

 Every wrinkle of the soil is utilized to the best 

 possible advantage for the production of that 

 kind of timber which promises to grow rela- 

 tively best on it. Here the American white pine 

 suffers badly from a fungous disease, so much 

 so that the forester has abandoned the planting 

 of American white pine entirely. 



Lampertheim was interesting for the manu- 

 facture by whipsaw and adze of railroad ties 

 f yellow pino, beech and oak). The German tie 

 differs from the American tie in its shape. The 

 German type is more economical for the reason 

 that its cross-section must not be a rectangle. 

 The upper side or slab side can bo as narrow as 

 six inches, provided that the base is ten inches 

 wide. By this means many a log yields two 

 ties instead of one. 



Very interesting were our "technical" excur- 

 sions. I should mention among them, above all, 

 an excursion to Gaulsheim, where telegraph 

 poles are kyanized on a large scale, and where 

 the new "Kuping" process of impregnation has 

 come into general use. This latter process 

 forces compressed air into the fie prior to its 

 impregnation. This air is withdrawn from the 

 tie towards the end of the impregnation process, 

 with the simultaneous result that large amounts 

 of the impregnating liquid are forced out of the 

 tie after having been pressed into it. The 

 amounts forced out would have been useless for 

 the preservation of the timber because they 

 have failed to incrustato the wood fibre. The 

 process gets along with about one-half of the 

 amount of creosote heretofore required ; and It 

 is for that reason much cheaper than the old 

 "Rutgers" process of impregnation. 



The telegraph poles impregnated at this plant 

 are imported from Archangel, in northern Rus- 

 sia. Imagine ! It is cheaper to import spruce 

 poles and pine poles from northern Russia than 

 to produce them locally. Germany cannot get 

 along with (he timber grown in Germany ; and 

 she is obliged to import as much as she grows. 

 Germany, stocked with timber as she is, might 

 fill her requirements for thirty years out of her 

 stumpage at hand, if she were to allow her sup- 

 plies to go as cheaply and to be diminished as 

 unscrupulously as the United States are allow- 

 ing theirs to go aud to be diminished. Prices are 

 maintained hereabouts by proper custom duties, 

 by proper freight rales aud by limited competi- 

 tion amongst the owners of stumpage. 



Dr. Schenek is now lecturing on Forest Policy. 

 The new edition of his book on this suljject is 

 just going through the press. Dr. House Is 

 lecturing on American hardwoods, giving us the 

 distribution and characteristic appearance of all 

 species during the four seasons of the year. The 

 botanical work at the rolytechnicum has con- 

 sisted in the study of the timber structure of 

 both conifers and hardwoods. — Herbert I,. Sulli- 

 van. Class rresident. 



