20 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



January 25, 1919 



some of which had been canceled and others held illegal by the 

 ruling of the comijtroller of the treasury. 



It is stated at the office of the wholesalers' lumber bureau in 

 Washington that many requests for stock in its Export Sales Cor- 

 poration are being received and referred to Mr. Underhill of 

 Wistar, Underhill & Nixon of Philadelphia, who is acting as treas- 

 urer of the corporation. 



Planting Memorial Trees 



The movement for planting memorial trees in honor of soldiers 

 and sailors who lost their lives in the war is gaining headway, 

 but it has not yet advanced beyond the talk stage. The move- 

 ment is spreading in foreign countries as well as in America. The 

 Boy Scouts will be asked to gather tree seeds to send to France. 



It has been suggested by the American Forefetry Association that 

 English walnut trees be planted to furnish shade in towns of suit- 

 able locality, the nuts being a source of profit to the community. 

 Brigham City, Utah, is reported to be carrying out this plan. 



Miscellaneous Items 

 Concerning the proposed tax measure. Gen. Boyle, representing 

 various lumber interests, understands that the conferees have 

 agreed upon a provision in the bill insuring fair allowance for 

 depletion in the lumber industry under the income tax and profits 

 tax laws. He believes that other provisions of the bill will be 

 agreed to in conference that are of special interest to the trade. 

 Eight hundred large public school buildings are needed in the 

 United States, according to F. T. Miller of the public works divi- 

 sion of the department of labor, which is taking steps to promote 

 the building industry as a means of providing employment for 

 labor. These schools will call for $80,000,000, or perhaps $100,000,- 

 000, which is only $1 per head for the American population, or on 

 the basis of twenty-year bonds to pay for them, only five cents per 

 head per year. i 



The shipping board has reported to tlie senate that war-time 

 restrictions upon the construction of wooden ships in American 

 yards for foreign account were removed by the board on December 

 6. No country but the United States builds wooden ships on a 

 large scale, the board states. It submitted a list of such applica- 

 tions as were granted, denied and pending. 



The board has also reported to the senate on its housing program, 

 in which it states that it has no definite plan for disposing of its 

 housing property; that much of it will be needed for some time, 

 and suggests that as other branches of the government have hous- 

 ing projects it might be -njell to consolidate the task of handling 

 them. The report states that 547 buildings have been eliminated 

 from shipping board projects since the signing of the armistice, 

 and that two projects, at Pensacola and Tacoma, involving 300 

 houses on which work had not been started, were dropped. 



The resignation of James Ormerod Heyworth of Chicago, man- 

 ager of the Wood Ship Division, United States Shipping Board, 

 Emergency Fleet Corporation, is announced. Mr. Heyworth with- 

 drew from the service of the corporation for the reason that he is no 

 longer able to disregard the demands of his private business as 

 engineering contractor. 



Some progress was made on the plan of disposing of surplus govern- 

 ment lumber at a conference in Washington January 20 between E. L. 

 Humphrey, of the war industries board, and A. J. Justus, on behalf 

 of the government, and representative lumbermen. 



It was agreed tentatively that the lumber manufacturers should take 

 the government's surplus that is in lots of 2,000,000 feet or more, and 

 resell it at market prices on terms of either 2 per cent in ten days or 60 

 days net for a commission on. 12 per cent. They wanted 20 per cent, 

 but the government oflScials at first offered only 5 per cent. The 

 lumber manufacturers told the conference that their cost of doing 

 business with the government lumber would be high, owing to the 

 expense of rehandling, resorting, repiling, reinspecting, etc.^and the 

 necessary allowance that must be made for deterioration. The whole- 

 salers stated that several years' record showed that it cost them $2.67 

 per 1,000 feet to seU lumber. It was said the manufacturers expect 

 to lose money handling the government lumber. 



The tentative understanding was that the producers would take 

 care of the big lots of government lumber by August 1 next or within 

 six months after the government inventories are completed ; that they 

 should have an option also to purchase small lots of government lumber 



by May 1. 



The conference developed the fact that the preliminary figures of 

 the government inventory of its surplus stock of building materials 

 seem to indicate that the amount of lumber of the several species 

 owned by it in various parts of the United States in excess of its re- 

 quirements would probably not exceed 150,000,000 feet. 



The navy department is out with an announcement that a quantity 

 of mahogany and walnut lumber for airplane propellers belonging to 

 the navy will be sold by sealed proposal at the oflice of the navy cost 

 inspector, Lang Products Co., Whitestone, Long Island, N. Y., Febru- 

 ary 15. The lots include about 190,000 feet mahogany. 



It has been announced by the war department that the First Bat- 

 talion, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 15th and 21st companies, 20th forestry engineers 

 have been withdrawn from the list for early sailing from France. 



Nelson C. Brown, another lumber trade commissioner of the same 

 department, has already returned from abroad with a mass of data 

 on lumber markets and sources of supply for the Mediterranean re- 

 gions. Brown has left Washington to visit lumber trade associations 

 and give them information regarding the Mediterranean lumber situ- 

 ation. The department of commerce will publish a report by him. 



The house committee on public buildings and grounds has reported 

 amendments to the Keed resolution which proposed abandonment of 

 all government housing projects not 75 per cent completed. Instead 

 the committee recommends that 24 projects be completed so that the 

 government can realize the utmost possible salvage out of them, and 

 for other reasons. The projects decided to retain include these: 

 Aberdeen, Md.; AUiance, O.; Bath, Me.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Charles- 

 ton, W. Va. ; Davenport, la. ; Bock Island, HI. ; Erie, Pa. ; Hammond, 

 Ind.; Indian Head, Md.; Mare Island, Cal.; New Brunswick, N. J.; 

 New London, Conn.; Newport, R. I.; Niagara Falls, N. T.; Water- 

 town, N. Y.; Niles, O. ; Portsmouth and Norfolk, Va.; Philadelphia, 

 Puget Sound, Quincy, Mass.; Waterbury, Conn. 



Song of the Axe 



By Will F. Griffin 



I'll sing you a song of the axe : I am the pioneer 



My faithful steel has blazed the way for the onward march ot man ; 

 Through desolate, wooded wastes my voice has echoed clear, 



Making a trail for the hardy sons whose blood for freedom ran. 

 Blazing the wooded way, 



A sturdy pioneer ; 

 Deep in the forest mesh 

 My voice has echoed clear. 



From shores where the gray dawn breaks to the slopes by the Western Seas, 



O'er valley and hill and river and plain my ringing song's been heard ; 

 Where sparkles the frozen \orth to the Carib's balmy breeze, 



I've been the guide to point the way with ever a cheery word. 

 Ever a faithful guide, 



Ready my task to fill ; 



Close at my master's side — 



True to his every will. 



Towering pines are mine, and cedar and giant oak — 



A pigmy I — grim monsters they — but all are my prey and spoil ; 

 .■ind little I heed their moan, as with steady and forceful stroke, 

 I lay them low to meet their death at my relentless toil. 

 They are my prey and spoil. 



And little I heed their moan ; 

 With my relentless toil 



1 garner them for my own. 



Deep from the treasured earth by man have I been brought. 



Shaped to a keen and smarting edge and tap'ring, gleaming face; 

 And I, when the world is old, when I have my mission wrought, 



Shall crumble away with my master's bones back to the earth's embrace. 

 When struggle and strife are past, 



And ended the fevered race, 

 Back to the earth at last — 

 Close in Its true embrace I 



