16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



January 10, 1919 



a systematic way, to find markets for such stuff as accumulates 

 about factories because it could not be used there. It was believed 

 that what one could not use, perhaps another could, and that a 

 sort of clearing house might find markets for the refuse. A little 

 success attended the efforts. A few lots of waste were sold, and 

 a list of prospective users and probable sellers was compiled. It 

 was an intelligent, well-planned effort to reduce wood waste in 

 factories; but success was quite moderate. Presumably, the effort 

 has been abandoned by the Forest Service, as nothing has been 

 heard of it for some time. 



In spite of discouragements and partial failures, .some progress 

 is being made toward lessening waste of wood in factories. One 

 of the measures contributing to that end is the policy of buying 

 lumber of the precise dimensions needed so that it can be cut up 

 without many .scraps being left over. That plan has its limitations 

 and it cannot wholly dispense with waste. Each manufacturer 

 makes a special study of his own factory and finds ways to save, 

 which an outsider might never see. 



Hakdwood Eecord receives frequent letters from managers of 

 factories asking where small pieces of certain sizes and shapes 

 can be sold. It is usually impossible to give a specific answer, 

 but this paper pursues the policy of suggesting articles that might 

 be made of such sizes, and of the kinds of wood listed, and oc- 

 casionally by that means markets are found. But no one should 

 imagine that there is any sure and easy way of finding markets 

 for odds and ends of factory offal. The problem is worth thought 

 and care, but its solution has not yet been wholly worked out. 



Surprising Quantity of Timber 



ACCORDING TO A VERY ANCIENT STORY, there was once a 

 meal barrel which was never quite empty, no matter how 

 much was taken out. • Forest resources are a counterpart of the 

 meal barrel. Two hundred years or more ago an officer of the 

 Britisli admiralty sounded a warning that the forests of our Atlan- 

 tic coast were approaching exhaustion; and one hundred and sev- 

 enty-five years ago Benjamin Franklin repeated the warning, so 

 far as Pennsylvania was concerned. More than one hundred years 

 ago the United States navy prepared to plant live oaks for future 

 ship timber; and warning after warning of the same kind has been 

 repeated at intervals since. The cry was heard a few years ago 

 that black walnut was practically a thing of the past; and a similar 

 prediction concerning white pine has been heard constantly during 

 the last thirty or forty years. 



In all of these cases it has turned out that the predictions were 

 too pessimistic. Some timber has always been forthcoming when 

 wanted. Black walnut, which was supposed to have been exhausted 

 nearly forty years ago when the big run was made on it by furni- 

 ture makers, proved to exist in sufficient quantities to furnish gun- 

 stocks and airplanes for ourselves and our allies during the late 

 war, and that was the heaviest demand made on walnut in all past 

 history. It is not yet exhausted, and somebody has said that a 

 similar drain would not have wholly exhausted the walnut supply 

 had the war continued five years more. 



A surprise now seems due us from France. We might have ex- 

 pected that the lumbering during the past four years would have 

 laid France bare of trees; but the claim is now being put forward 

 that France has enough timber left to take care of its own recon- 

 struction needs, and that it will not be under the necessity of going 

 outside its own borders for any. If that is true, it will come as a 

 surprise to many persons who supposed that France was sacrificing 

 the last of its woodlands in a desperate struggle to beat the foe 

 back. 



When the war began, England and Scotland were not supposed 

 to possess timber resources of any consequence. Those countries 

 had shade and park trees, but these were about the limit. Yet 

 millions on millions of feet of timber were cut in England and 

 Scotland, and surprise at the quantities furnished was universal. 

 Nobody seemed to know just from where it all came. 



No less an authority than Joseph G. Cannon, for years the vigor- 

 ous speaker of the House of Representatives, has been quoted as 

 saying that Indiana now has more timber than it had when he 

 was a boy, seventy years ago. There probably is not more, but he 

 lias .1 better understanding of the matter, and it seems to hiin 

 there is more. However, there are persons who are confident that 

 A'irginia has more timber now than it had seventy years ago, and 

 that is true of some of the lodgepole pine regions west of the 

 Rocky mountains, and of paper birch in tlie northern and north- 

 eastern states, and of niesquite in Texas. 



One trouble in arriving at timber stand by guess work is that 

 so many persons are poor guessers, yet their guesses may be ac- 

 cepted by somebody as correct. One case to the point will illus- 

 trate. Not long ago a lumber company bought the timber in a 

 boundary lying on the border of Maryland and West Virginia. 

 One farmer with a little tract of timber above his field refused to 

 sell or set a price. Not that he was holding out for a higher figure, 

 but he wanted to "show the corporations that there was some- 

 thing they could not buy, etc." Finally, he lost his temper when 

 they continued to try to buy the few acres; and, thinking to silence 

 them, once for all, by naming a price which ho knew no sane man 

 would pay, he replied: 



''Put up or shut up. You can have that timber for fifty dollars, 

 and not a cent less. Decide now what you will do. Take it or let 

 it alone. ' ' 



The buyer said he would take it, and the farmer lost his breath; 

 but he lost it again afterwards when he found that the company 

 had cut $2,'200 worth of timber on the tract. 



The moral is that many people don't know how to estimate tim- 

 ber, or even guess at it. That is why there is often so much timber 

 in places where there is supposed to be but little. 



An Unpopular Stewardship 



No VOICE IS HEARD these days demanding that the manage- 

 ment of railroads by the government be continued. The experi- 

 ment that was tried as a war measure did not achieve enough suc- 

 cess to create a demand that the same experiment continue as a 

 peace policy. The inconveniences and failures, such as they were, 

 escaped criticism while the war continued, because the people were 

 reconciled to suffer some hardships for the country's good; but the 

 attitude may be expected to change rapidly if the same manage- 

 ment continues to manage in the same way. Poorer service at 

 greater cost is not popular. 



It is going to be harder to get back to the old method of rail- 

 roading than it was to get away from it. One of the hard parts in 

 reestablishing railroading as it was, will be to secure experienced 

 help in place of that thrown out and dispersed when the govern- 

 ment took over the railroads. The services of thousands of trained 

 men were dispensed with, and these people have found places else- 

 where, and few of them will go back to the railroads again. New 

 men will have to be trained before the old order will again work 

 smoothly. It will take time. 



Some people used to think they wanted a different kind of rail- 

 roading from what they had; but now, after the experience with 

 government control, they will be pretty well satisfied to get the 

 old kind back. It may be taken for granted that advocates of 

 government ownership of railroads will not find much sympathy 

 for some time to come. 



The latest suggestion from those supposed to be in the confidence 

 of the railroad administration is that the government will need 

 about five years to accomplish its let-go in good style, and some 

 law making will be necessary if the best results are to follow. Is 

 there not a shorter way out? Five years is a long time. 



More than 2.50 different sizes, kinds, and patterns of brush 

 handles are in use. Factories in the business of making them are 

 prepared to turn out new styles according to order. In size 

 handles range from that intended for a cant hook, wliich is about 

 the largest iu regular use, down to that for the button hook, the 

 smalh'st. 



