22 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



April 



lit21 



The Tropical Timber Business 



*By Samuel J. Record 



More uiul more .•ittciition is liciiiH <l>'VOti'il 

 to the possibilities of the tropicnl tinilirr 

 business, p:irticuliirly in the Ainuxou Biisin 

 of Soutli Amerieii. This is stiimil.'ited by 

 the rising cost of our native lunilier, tlic 

 reported senreity of certain kinds, and the 



is slack the returns from tlie sale may not be 

 sufficient to cover cost of transportation. 

 There is not the slightest incentive for ship- 

 ping in new and untried woods; in fact, 

 there are the liest of reasons for not doing 

 so. Even if a lot of logs are contracted for. 



Left — Lf>ading a Square Timber on an OxCart, Costa Rica. 



Center — Spanish Cedar Logs. Costa Rica. 

 Men Boarded Here 



Right — A Logging Camp in Costa Rica. Twenty 



fact that certain mill operators see the end of their cut in sight 

 and are looking for new tields. Moreover, rubber companies with 

 large concessions of land find themselves no longer able to com- 

 pete with plantation rubber in the Far East and are considering 

 the timber trade as the way out. 



The path, however, is beset with ditSculties, and a great deal of 

 pioneer work will have to be done. A market, except for the 

 woods with a reputation already established, will have to be 

 created, life-time prejudices and practices will have to be over- 

 come and modified, and jirojier methods of seasoning and handling 

 the new lumber will h;ive to be worked out. Then there are the 

 difficulties of logging in complex forests usually remote from well- 

 developed industrial centers, where labor is an uncertain quantity 

 and where conditions for successful operations may be far from 

 ideal. The only business that can hope to succeed must be well 

 organized and financed, so that every stage in the logging, trans- 

 portation, milling, seasoning and marketing is properly supervised. 



Let us consider for a moment the existing methods of our trop- 

 ical timber trade. There are, in general, two, though in practice 

 tliev are not always distinct and separate. There are, first, the big 

 importing houses and dealers who own concessions or control the 

 producers in the tropical forest. There are not many such opera- 

 tions, and those on a large scale are concerned primarily with 

 mahogany and secondarily with the Spanish cedar which grows 

 in mixture with it. The logging methods are comi)aratively 

 efficient, with tramways, tractors and various adaptations of our 

 woods equipment and machinery to local conditions-. Steamers are 

 chartered to transport the logs to this country, where they are 

 sawed in the com|).iny mills and the lumber sold direct from them 

 to manufacturers. Such concerns know their product intimately, 

 are thoroughly familiar with the demands of the trade, and have 

 establishecl rej)utations to sustain. ' 



On the other hand there are the general importers which handle 

 woods along with other articles of merchandise. Logs are shipped 

 on consignment and sold to the highest bidder. If the market is 

 temporarily glutted or for any reason the demand for such material 



* Profet<ttor of Fonst l'nnlni-ts. Ynli- I' nirersilir 



bought to arrive, they may be rejected because of failure, true or 

 alleged, to come up to specifications in kind or quality. There is 

 so much confusion in local names for woods that there is no telling 

 what an order for a certain kind will produce. All of this tends 

 to disrupt the trade, to foment trouble and to discourage pro- 

 duction. 



Such methods, too, are very expensive. The woods must pass 

 through many hands and pay toll to each. A native farmer cuts 

 a log or two a year to exchange to the nearest storekeeper for 

 goods. A traveling buyer buys these logs from the storekeeper 

 and has them hauled by ox carts to a river landing or along the 

 railroad. He may be the agent of a commission house or some 

 dealer in a seaport tow^n or he may be working independently. In 

 any event the logs for export are taken on steamers or rafts or by 

 train to seaport and stored. Later they are shipped to a commis- 

 sion house in New York. A general importing firm does not sell 

 to manufacturers but through a broker to dealers. The dealer 

 whose bid is accepted takes the logs to his yard, sorts them and 

 perhaps cuts them up to meet the requirements of the trade. The 

 methods are not always as indirect as this but the short cuts are 

 few. Small wonder that tropical woods are expensive! 



In certain instances the excessive cost of tropical woods is driv- 

 ing them from our market. A considerable number of woods for- 

 merly common are now rare or extinct so far as our trade is con- 

 cerned. Take ebony for example. At one time it was considered 

 the only wood suitable for the black keys of pianos, for the finger 

 boards of violins and various other uses. Now some of our fine- 

 textured woods, such as birch, are stained black or "ebonized" 

 and serve fully as well and are much cheaper. The use of Brazilian 

 rosewood for furniture has dwindled almost to the vanishing point, 

 but if some concern would follow the practice of the mahogany 

 dealers the cost of the wood could be halved and a thriving busi- 

 ness established. If the tropical timber business is to make any 

 headway in the United States the methods must be revolutionized. 



One hears a great deal about the tropical forests being a great 

 source of cross-ties for our railroads. This is no doubt the case, but 

 there are likely to be a great many failures before any big profits 

 are reaped in this field. There is still a great reserve of our own 



