

Copyright, The Hardwood Company, 1918 

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

 Mill and Woodworking Machinery, on the 10th and 25lh of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Edgar H. Defebaugh, President 

 Edwin W. Meeker, Managing Editor 

 Hu Maxwell, Technical Editor' 



Seventh Floor Ellsworth Building 



537 So. Dearborn Street, CHICAGO 



Telephones: Harrison 8086-8087-80&8 



Vol. XLVI 



CHICAGO, OCTOBER 25, 1918 



No. 1 



,mMy.B^WK;■M;J^o^o t^:^tataila^ waKl^^s^05t^M'■■^^^ 



Review and Outlook 



General Market Conditions 



THE CONDITION OF THE MARKET as a whole is distinctly 

 spotty, but by no means hopeless either for the buyer or the 

 seller. The manufacturer must realize that if able to gradually 

 switch to all essential work he will be officially protected in every 

 necessary way, but if unable to so adapt himself, the chief influence 

 tending to limit him is labor, and in most lines female help is 

 demonstrating singular fitness for the work. Hence the labor out- 

 look is not absolutely hopeless even in non-essential lines. 



It should further be borne in mind that in many lines the govern- 

 ment has clearly shown that it will not rule the industries out of 

 business because of non-essentiality. To illustrate, it hardly seems 

 justifiable to suppose that the government would have invested 

 the immense amount of labor attendant upon recent standardiza- 

 tion of furniture manufacture and upon regulation of the impor- 

 tation and utilization of certain hardwoods were it in contempla- 

 tion to eliminate the industry entirely. On the other hand, dis- 

 tributors of hardwoods must realize the one most important point 

 in maintaining a fair proportion of business is for them to be on 

 hand in one way or another when orders are about to be placed. 



As stated, the market is spotty. This means that lumber is being 

 sought to a good total quantity, but only when a definite necessity 

 for it arrives. In the first place there is little incentive for the 

 buyer to follow any other policy, for at the best he is none too 

 sure of his ground. Then, too, he is responsible for the securing 

 of permits, a task he would not undertake except when necessary 

 to secure lumber he really needs. In fact, the official restriction 

 upon his purchases in accordance with actual and current needs is 

 sufficient reason why he cannot buy except to fill those needs. All 

 of this comes down to the point with sellers of lumber as to how 

 much business they really want and how much extra effort they 

 are willing to put forth to insure being on hand in the greatest 

 number of times when the order is to be placed. In other words, 

 the man with the shotgun has a far better chance of hitting a flying 

 bird with his many shots than has the man with but the single 

 bullet fired from a rifle. 



It is admitted in all parts of the country that the permit situation 

 is improving materially. Additions to the number of permit offices 

 and a better regulation of the organization is really accomplishing 

 results. At the same time the record so far appears almost 

 appalling. 



The South seems for some reason to be worse hit, probably 

 because in the diversity of product from the southern hardwood 

 forests, there is a greater percentage of non-war lumber. The full 



facts regarding the result of the embargo on southern hardwood 

 shippers is shown on page 19. It is a definite certainty that a 

 drastic reduction of output will result. This prospect is rendered 

 doubly sure by the serious ravages of the epidemic which is directly 

 responsible for total shut-down of hundreds of mills, which will be 

 unable to resume for at least a week or two longer. Yet in the face 

 of this there are still some representative firms that have not the 

 courage to hold their boards with the iron-clad assurance that they 

 will never be intrinsically less valuable and must, with the still 

 continuing increasing cost of manufacture,- be more valuable. The 

 holders of such stocks would do well to give deep thought to the 

 two following points: 



What is likely to be the outcome of the present peace efforts? 

 In other words, when will the war end, and when the war ends, what 

 will be the position of such stocks of standard boards ready for 

 shipment? 



The answer to the last question must be evident to anyone. As 

 to the former, none can say with certainty, but a rumor coming 

 from the southern hardwood mill section to the effect that the 

 government is cancelling orders for heavy stqck would seem to 

 have something more behind it than a desire to retrench on the 

 necessity for changing a set of specifications. The millman with 

 the prospect of more of a certain kind of boards than he likes to 

 see piling up would show a greater degree of business sense were he 

 to exhaust every effort to switch to some other line or even shut 

 down his plant and' cease cutting out his timber than to adopt the 

 time-honored course of the weak sister and cut his prices even 

 when he knows that a cut price only helps to slow up a draggy 

 market and accomplishes nothing for sales. 



The Horse Vehicle Remains 



THE EECENT CONVENTION of the National Implement and 

 Vehicle Association in Chicago brought out the fact that the 

 motor has not yet put the horse out of business as a power in draw- 

 ing vehicles and farm machines. The list of members of the asso- 

 ciation shows 491 firms in the United States engaged in manufac- 

 turing vehicles and machines to be drawn by horses, and this large 

 number does not include all. It represents about ninety per cent 

 of the output. It is evident that the horse still has a place in the 

 country's industries and that a long time will pass before the 

 motor will totally displace the horse, if it ever shall. The next 

 government census will be awaited with interest for official figures 

 showing how the motor vehicle and the horse-drawn machine com- 

 pare in importance. No complete late figures now exist. 



