March 10. 1919 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



19 



Important Announcements from Washington 



By H. C. Hallam 



The session of congress just closed failed to pass the agricultural 

 appropriation bill with its provisions for the operation of the forest 

 service, which aggregated from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. The bill 

 also carried a senate amendment appropriating $2,000,000 for the 

 purchase of laud for forestry purposes under the Weeks law. 



The $750,000,000 appropriation for the railroad administration 

 failed of enactment into law, which seems to mean that improve- 

 ments on the railroads of the country- will be curtailed. The omnibus 

 public buildings bill providing $60,000,000 for public buildings 

 throughout the country did not have a look in, having passed 

 neither house of congress. The Kitchin resolution to repeal the 

 so-called luxury tax schedule providing for a 10 per cent levy on 

 picture frames and other articles passed the house, but failed in 

 the senate. 



Secretary Lane 's proposition for a $100,000,000 appropriation 

 for the purchase and development of cutover, swamp and other 

 waste lands to furnish employment and homes and farms for return- 

 ing soldiers, came up in neither house, although it secured a privi- 

 leged status in the house as a result of the reporting of a special 

 rule for its consideration. Likewise the item of $100,000 in the 

 sundry civil appropriation bill for continued investigation and 

 survey of cutover and other land failed of enactment with the bal- 

 ance of that bill. 



The Lane bill was endorsed by a number of state legislatures in 

 the North, "West and South, several of which had delegations here 

 working for it. 



There is some compensation for the lumber industry in the expec- 

 tation that is well founded that Representative Joseph W. Fordney 

 of Michigan, a veteran member of the house and an old time lum- 

 berman, is slated to be chairman of the important committee on 

 ways and means, which will frame revenue legislation in the next 

 congress. 



M. E. Towner, head of the forest products section, central advisory 

 purchasing committee, railroad administration, is confined to a 

 Baltimore hospital, where he went for an operation that will keep 

 him off duty for two or three weeks. J. H. Lauderdale, formerly 

 of the New Orleans office of the forest products section, is on the 

 job in Washington with John Foley in his stead. 



Mr. Foley says that ties are coming in more freely than for some 

 time. He minimizes the tie troubles of the railroad administration. 

 In the matter of uniformity of hardwood materials for the railroads, 

 he says that a meeting of persons interested may bo called later, 

 with a view to securing such uniformity. It is said to be the log- 

 ical thing to try to make grades for railroad hardwood material 

 uniform, as was done some time ago in the case of standardizing 

 crossties. The practices of railroads vary so greatly that officials 

 will not even hazard a guess as to the number of different sizes of 

 hardwood car material, for instance, that are purchased by the 

 railroads. 



As a result of recent conferences between representatives of 

 the government and rei>resentatives of the plywoods and veneer 

 industries, it is announced that a method of procedure has been 

 unanimously agreed upon by which the surjilus stocks of the govern- 

 ment in plywoods and veneers will be disposed of by the govern- 

 ment in co-operation with the industry, it is believed, in the best 

 interests of both the government and the industry. The plan covers 

 only the surplus that is not absorbed through redistribution among 

 the several bureaus of the government. 



The representatives of the industry expressed their gratification 

 at the outcome of the conferences and the belief that the method 

 of procedure which had been agreed to would remove the uncer- 



tainty and menace which those surplus stocks of the government 

 have exercised over the veneer and plywood market. 



The contract for the disposal of government surplus lumber 

 stocks has been signed at last. The stocks are being taken over 

 by a lumbermen's committee, to be sold at market prices. 



The director of sales announces the following inventories of sur- 

 X'lus materials furnished by the construction division of the army: 

 400,000 ties, millwork— 25,000 doors, 20,000 screen doors, 200,000 

 sash and miscellaneous millwork, total approximate cost $380,000. 

 The sash, it is stated, are special, with special sized glass. 



Production of Walnut 



Government officials suggest that the planting of walnut trees 

 might be stimulated by high prices of walnut lumber, but on the 

 other hand it is admitted that changing fashions in furniture might 

 make the wood less in demand in view of possible competition from 

 various tropical American cabinet woods. If no other interest will 

 take the matter up, it is urged that the government should plant 

 walnut trees, owing to the need of this timber for war purposes. 



It is estimated that the total cut of walnut last year was 120,000,- 

 000 feet, or twice the 1917 cut, and it is estimated the cut would 

 have reached 180,000,000 feet this year if the war had continued, 

 or nearly a fifth of the total stand of a billion feet of this timber. 

 It is stated that the production of gunstoek material increased 

 from 33,000 feet per day early last year to 240,000 feet per day 

 by last August, to 360,000 feet per day in September, and would 

 have increased to 500,000 feet per day during the first half of this 

 year. It is estimated that the production of walnut propeller stock 

 reached 17,000,000 feet by September last and that it would have 

 reached 30,000,000 feet during 1919. 



The total cost of horse drawn vehicles shipped overseas to Decem- 

 ber 1 last was $7,247,000; nearly 28,000 escort wagons, water carts, 

 combat wagons, ration carts, ambulances, medical carts and spring 

 wagons. Twenty-three hundred standard gauge railroad cars and 

 nearly 400 narrow gauge cars were held by the war department 

 February 1. The cars were valued at about $4,000,000. 



The general supply committee of the government will open bids 

 April 21 for furnishing government departments in Washington 

 lumber, millwork and packing boxes. 



Two hundred thousand feet of beech, birch and maple lumber is 

 wanted by bureau of supplies and accounts of navy department. 



Thomas W. Smith, pioneer lumber merchant of Washington and 

 for fifty years a prominent figure in the affairs of the national 

 capital, died recently. 



French Lumber Matters 



The department of commerce announces that the Ministry of 

 Liberated Begions of the French government has asked for bids for 

 supplying 75,000 articles of furniture, 62,000 doors, 37,000 windows 

 and 25,000 shutters for use in reconstruction work in the devastated 

 regions. 



The war trade board announces that the French government has 

 removed restrictions from the importation of the following com- 

 modities among many others: logs, fagots, brushwood, charcoal, 

 fine woods, tropical and subtropical woods, dyewood, rattans, willow, 

 wooden shoes, wooden spring rollers, wood for saddles, turnery, rims 

 of bent wood, shuttles for looms, handles, other woodwork, cylinders 

 and disks of wood. 



The British government has relaxed its embargo and permits 

 the exportation to virtually all for enemy countries of rattans, 

 household furnishings of wood, etc., office furniture, pianos, sewing 

 machines, turners' ware of wood, walking sticks, etc. The British 



