March 10, 1919 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



30i 



By John B. Woods, Ex. Capt. Engrs. 



When the war burst upon France she mobilized every available 

 man for some line of work. Unfortunately slie did not always choose 

 the right man for the job, either at the front or behind the lines. 

 Horseshoers became bakers and college professors were transformed 

 by army order to officers of the army engineer branch with active 

 charge over large sawmills and similar enterprises. Naturally 

 there was confusion and some inefficiency, but generally speaking 

 France showed that she was ready for war. This mobilization at- 

 tended even to the smallest town in the country and embraced 

 every activity that could assist 

 in winning the war. 



For example. Monsieur Debec 

 was a large manufacturer of 

 wood goods who lived at Nantes 

 in retirement, having made his 

 fortune. But immediately there 

 was war he received an order to 

 proceed to Lorient, a naval base 

 of Brittany, for the purpose of 

 manufacturing wooden barracks 

 for the French and British 

 armies. He closed his Nantes 

 residence, gathered his numer- 

 ous family together, leased a 

 big house in Lorient, and settled 

 there for the duration of the 

 war. The war department turned 

 over to him advantageous con- 

 tracts to justify him in invest- 

 ing a large amount of money in 

 plant and equipment, guaranteed to furnish labor. So he got back 

 into harness, and incidentally added substantially to his fortune. 

 Probably by now he has sold out and is back at Nantes. 



His Lorient factory, or ehantier, as it was called in French, con- 

 sisted of several barracks, built by his personnel, in which were 

 installed a band resaw with automatic feed, and several wood- 

 working machines such as planers and tongue-and-groove machines. 

 They all were European types, very slow feed and did poor work 

 from our point of view, splintering the grain. Steam power was 

 generated in several portable rigs, picked up second hand from one 

 place and another. Men operated the machines and women took 

 the output of planed lumber and dimension, placed them together 

 in accordance vrith numbered patterns, and nailed them, making 



CUTTINi. 



iii.iiiKs Fdi: w(i<ii>i;x siiiiKs 



THEN BUCKED. 



sections of portable barrack buildings. Patent American roofing 

 material was used for the roof sections. To the stranger it ap- 

 peared very slipshod and expensive manufacturing, but as a matter 

 of fact it was the best that could be done with men and machinery 

 available, and returned the owner a pleasing profit. 



His greatest problem was in the sawmilling end. The forests of 

 Brittany are largely state owned, and consist of shortleafed pine 

 in mixture with hardwoods. Years ago the foresters planted noth- 

 ing but hardwoods, beech and oak principally. But the soil is too 



sour for these species to do their 

 best, and as a result the planters 

 clianged over to pine as their 

 principal crop. Yet they clung 

 to the hardwoods which they 

 loved, and often planted pine 

 under small coppice or in mix- 

 ture with open stands of mature 

 lieecli and oak. The result is a 

 composite forest, and now that 

 much of the pine is merchant- 

 able, the Forest Administration 

 insists that whoever buys pine 

 must cut the hardwoods and 

 vice versa. Both are valuable 

 crops, much sought after for 

 war industries, but the difficulty 

 lies in operating two very dif- 

 ferent types of manufacture 

 simultaneously. 



Certainly one did not care to 

 convert oak and beech into portable barracks. Neither was it 

 practicable to use a large percentage of the stand for railroad ties, 

 for the transport of ties was a serious problem, stocks were large, 

 and there could be no income from the timber until the ties were 

 delivered to buyers. Up at the front they used cheaper ties for 

 the Boche artillery to destroy, and great stacks of hardwood ties 

 were to be found in every small station yard. The best solution 

 of the problem was to use the hardwood for small products, the 

 beech for wooden shoes and the oak for artillery wagons and the 

 like. And this meant the preliminary sawing was to be done on 

 small mills in the "woods. The oak could be cut into flitches, the 

 beech into blocks, while the pine was squared into timbers or cut 

 into dimension, for shipment to the ehantier. 



THE LOi: 



SLABBED 



H.\RDWOOD LUGS AT JIILL IN FRANCE. 



PEELING LOGS FOR SAWING. 



