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The Lumbermen s Round Table 



KILLING THE GOOSE AGAIN? 



The roiiiarUs ijiioti'il hiTi>\vitl> 111113- l"^ regardod as prcjuJiccil, 

 because they come from a buyer of walnut. Nevertheless, they 

 are perhaps worth repeating. 



"Lumbermen are exceedingly poor business men," said this 

 authority. "They don't know when they are well off. They 

 have killed many a good thing by trying to squeeze an abnormal 

 profit out of it and by rushing the price up so fast that buyers 

 were simply driven in desperation to the use of some other wood. 

 Take the case of poplar — a tragedy, you might almost call it. 

 Had the people chiefly interested in the production of poplar 

 taken pains to keep the price down to the proper figure, they 

 would not now be struggling to find an outlet for this splendid 

 wood. 



"The walnut situation is the same way. The lumbermen are 

 so determined to get what seem to me to be e.\cessive prices for 

 their logs and lumber that they have caused buyers both here 

 and abroad almost to withdraw from the market. The result, 

 of course, has been a reduced demand, a lowering of the price 

 and a glutted market. 



"Some day, perhaps, the lumbermen will realize that it is to 

 their interest to keep prices steady, not too low nor yet too high; 

 the happy medium combining encouraging the demand and securing 

 a legitimate profit." 



HELPING TO PAY THE PIPER 



"I am glad to see that there is an excellent prospect of the 

 producers of red gum forming an association which will have 

 charge of the advertising of that commodity, as well as handle 

 other matters of general interest," said a well-known member 

 of the trade recently. "The cypress manufacturers' association 

 has done great work along this line, largely because it has in- 

 cluded practically every manufacturer of any consequence. This 

 has resulted in the cost of exploiting the wood being shared by 

 everybody interested and in a position to profit. Red gum, on 

 the other hand, has been advertised by a comparatively small 

 number of manufacturers; and withput debating the merits of 

 general advertising for lumber, it must be conceded that it was 

 a little too much to ask these concerns to foot the bills, whereas 

 everybody in the business was able to profit by the results. The 

 association will at least enable the cost of maintaining such a 

 campaign to be properly distributed." 



•THE COST OF SELLING LUMBER 



Do you realize that it costs almost as much to sell hardwood 

 lumber through traveling salesmen as it does to saw the lumber 

 in the first place? 



This may sound like an extravangant statement; yet the books 

 of a well-known concern, which operates mills as well as whole- 

 sale yards, and has a big corps of salesmen, most of whom are 

 considered top-notchers, show that this is pretty nearly the case. 



It costs the company $1.70 a thousand to sell lumber through 

 several of its men. Some of them sell for less, of course, and 

 the average is below the figure quoted. It costs but $1.90 a 

 thousand to saw the stock, this including the actual expense of 

 manufacturing, exclusive of loading into the mill, yarding, etc. 



The figures are not mentioned to give the idea that selling ex- 

 penses are excessive; but simply to impress upon the lumberman 

 the fact that since it costs so much money to dispose of lumber, 

 that feature of his business ought to have as much attention as 

 any other, including the actual manufacture of the stock. But 

 few see anything except the sawmill end of the business. 

 QUARTERING RED OAK 



Lumbermen who take the trouble to analyze the difference in 

 values between quartered red and .quartered white oak and be- 

 tween plain red and plain white oak sometimes wonder how any 

 quartered red oak manages to get on the market at all. It is 

 of course true that most red oak is sawed plain; but some mills 

 —22— 



have managed to pile up a fair amount of quartered stock with- 

 out actually going to the expense of manufacturing it in that 

 way. The apparent anomaly is explained by the fact that they 

 cut the log straight through, without turning, the result being 

 that the center boards are quartered, as far as figure is con- 

 cerned, though the conventional method of quartering was dis- 

 regarded. With the expense of manufacturing reduced by this 

 method, making quartered red oak may become profitable, after 

 all, though, obviously, comparatively little is piled up except at 

 a mill with a very large production. 



BY-PRODUCTS OF HARDWOODS 



A concern has been formed at Jackson, Ky., for the purpose of 

 manufacturing wood alcohol, acetate of lime, cliarcoal and tar 

 products from beech and hard maple. The business will be con- 

 ducted under the name of the Kentucky Wood Products Company, 

 Kennard Eagon, manager. An investment of $35,000 is being 

 made in a sawmill to cut up cord-wood for the ovens, as well as 

 lumber from the better class of timber acquired; in the ovens 

 themselves, which are two in number and fifty-two feet long, 

 and in the other equipment needed. 



This is the only concern of the kind in Kentucky and other 

 sections of the central southern hardwood belt, and the business- 

 like way in which the concern is planning its work indicates that 

 the pro.iect has been carefully thought out and has been found 

 to be practicable. The company, by the way, will use some mill 

 refuse in its operations, showing that there is opportunity to 

 manufacture valuable by-products from certain hardwoods, at 

 least. It would be of great benefit to the trade to have com- 

 mercial chemists put to work on the proposition to determine 

 whether it would not be practicable to operate by-products at 

 hardwood mills, as is being done in connection with yellow pine 

 and other softwoods. 



ONE ADVANTAGE OF THE RIVER 



A hardwood man was complaining to one of his friends in the 

 business of the big demurrage bills he was having to pay on 

 ears of logs which remained on his track for an unusually long 

 period because of the crowded condition of his yard and the im- 

 possibility of unloading promptly. 



' ' This car service proposition is getting to be a pretty big 

 item," he said. "It is running between $150 and $200 a month, 

 and I would like mighty well to get rid of it. ' ' 



"For the first time," said the other manufacturer, slapping 

 his thigh, ' ' I feel that operating a river mill has compensations. 

 I had never thought of it before, but I certainly have an advan- 

 tage at that point, because I can let my rafts or barges lie in 

 the river as long as I please, and not pay a cursed cent for the 

 privilege. ' ' 



Perhaps this is the silver lining of the river mill cloud. 



COMMON SENSE BADLY NEEDED 



In these days of scientific management one could easily believe 

 that everything had been done that common, ordinary horse- 

 sense could dictate; otherwise, why drag in the professors with 

 their higher mathematics and scientific formulae? 



But a little observation here and there shows that the trade 

 as a whole stands more in need of the application of practical, 

 sensible methods that everybody knows all about than of sensa- 

 tional stunts which have the advantage of novelty. 



This thought was impressed recently by seeing a big lot of 

 beech lumber lying beside a railroad station in a southern state. 

 The owner of the lumber had purchased a big lot of logs sev- 

 eral months before, paying a high price in competition with 

 other concerns. Then, applying a little scientific management, 

 and thinking to save freight and handling charges, he had in- 

 stalled a portable mill on the timber tract and had cut up the 

 logs as the trees were felled. The lumber was hauled to the sta- 

 tion to be loaded into cars, and as it was expected to ship it 



