HARDWOOD RECORD 



17 



FIXE SPECIMEN NOBLE FIK. ISO FEET TO 

 FIKST LIMB, OREGON. 



lumbermen is trimmeJ and floated down- 

 stream during the spring, summer and early 

 autumn. Sticks are generally 8, 16, 24, and 

 occasionally 32 feet long — rarely exceeding 

 the latter length — and about 10 by 8 inches 

 throughout. Larger logs are the exception. 

 The annual output has in the past averaged 

 2,000,000 and over, estimated in Sfoot sticks. 



Ninety per cent of the output consists of 

 pine, generally of excellent quality. The 

 woods are red pine, yellow pine, white pine, 

 sand pine, oil pine, red elm, yellow elm, oak, 

 walnut, "lemon" wood, small willow, 

 "color" wood (logvvood?), yellow arbor 

 vita;, and a tree "with fruit like a shad- 

 dock." These names are in many instances 

 literal translations from the Chinese. 



It is undoubtedly the purpose of the Jap- 

 anese interested in the formation of the tim- 

 ber company on the Yalu to place their tim- 

 ber on the oriental market. A scientific plan 

 for felling and conserving the forests will be 

 followed, and in addition to the sawmills, 

 which now handle only a small proportion of 

 the total amount of timber rafted down- 

 stream each year and which have been estab- 

 lished at Antung, New Wiju and Yongampho 

 other and larger works will be operated. 

 Yalu timber has never been properly sea- 

 soned, and the sawmills date only from the 

 time of the occupation of this region by the 

 Japanese forces. For the past two and a 

 half years they have been engaged solely ia 

 supplying the wants of the military author- 

 ities and not attempted to place their prod- 

 uct on the market. 



Inasmuch as 3,099,613 cubic feet of hard- 

 wood, valued at about $1,000,000 United 

 States gold, and 170,247,345 square feet of 

 soft wood, valued at about $3,000,500 United 

 States gold, were imported into China during 

 the year 1906, it is reasonable to suppose that 

 the operation on the Yalu of a large and well- 

 organized timber company will appreciably 

 affect the sale in China of foreign lumber. 



GROUP OF NOBLE FIR OR OREGON LARCH 

 TREES, OREGON. 



'Builders of Lumber History. 



Clarence B. Mengel. 

 (See Portrait Supplement.) 



Clarence E. Mengel is not a southerner, as 

 many people think, but was born in Glou- 

 cester, Mass., in the early sixties, where his 

 father was in the cigar and tobacco busi- 

 ness. When he was one year old the family 

 moved to Brooklyn and the father entered the 

 leaf tobacco business in New York City, con- 

 tinuing in it a number of years. 



Getting closer from time to time to the 

 manufacturing end, C. C. Mengel, Sr., finally 

 started a plug tobacco factory at Louis- 

 ville, Ky., and his boys, Charles C. and Clar- 

 ence E., worked with their father in the 

 factory. It was the growing need for to- 

 bacco boxes that occasioned these two young 

 men, one 18 and the other 19 years old, to 

 start making boxes for the firm. 



This was a primitive business at first, but 

 they soon "caught on," and purchased 

 shooks from the Saginaw Valley country, so 

 that it was not long before C. C. Mengel, Jr., 

 had a factory at Bay City, and C. E. became 

 the local manager at that point. The fore- 

 man found it necessary to appeal to him so 



NUMBER LVII. 



often for supplies that he finally became 

 purchasing agent for the institution. Lumber 

 was plenty and money was scarce, so C. R., 

 with his persuasive way, soon separated the 

 old-time lumbermen from their stock and his 

 personal taste being toward the lumber end, 

 he became quite an active factor, jobbing in 

 a small way, as well as furnishing lumber 

 for the Bay City factory. 



In the meantime the main factory at 

 Louisville had grown and waxed fat. C. C. 

 Mengel, Jr., was managing the business and 

 making progress, although having a hard 

 struggle at times. It was in the early eighties 

 that they became boxmakers to ' ' The Duke, ' ' 

 otherwise known as the American Tobacco 

 Company. Their lumber business had ex- 

 tended so by this time that Clarence E. Men- 

 gel came to Louisville, and in '84 the firm 

 name was changed to C. C. Mengel, Jr., & 

 Brother. Shortly afterwards A. W. Wright 

 of Alma, Mich., became a partner and the 

 firm was then known as C. C. Mengel, Jr., & 

 Brother Company. 



They operated mills in Tennessee and be- 

 came large factors in the poplar and oak 



trade, enlarging this end of the business 

 from year to year. When their poplar and 

 oak operations necessarily became less ex- 

 tensive, owing to the scarcity of timber, they 

 took the other side of the market, buying 

 largely in hardwoods and exporting to all 

 parts of the world. 



"The Duke" then began to realize that 

 he was up against the real thing in purchas- 

 ing boxes and like all wise men took the 

 Mengels into the fold and tried to make a 

 tobacco man of 0. C. Mengel. So the Amer-. 

 can Tobacco Company purchased an interest 

 in the Mengel Box Company, which suc- 

 ceeded to the box and timber end of the 

 C. C. Mengel, Jr., & Brother Company — 

 and they purchased a new site for a distrib- 

 uting yard, with the idea of manufacturing 

 lumber in the city of Louisville. 0. E. 

 Mengel was elected president of the orig- 

 inal company, C. C. Mengel giving most of 

 his time to the management of the Mengel 

 Box Company, although always giving the 

 benefit of bis advice to the lumber business 

 as well. 



Visits to the quays and markets of the 



