HARDWOOD RECORD 



17 



oabinet. a uart whoel, or nliatcver lie lias in the niarkrt. ]f lie is 

 substitutiiii; asbi'stiis or slate roofing for wood, ho shows the liiiished 

 shingle or the eoiiiplotv roof, and not a block of the eriule material. If 

 he is nianiifactiiring a cement floor whicti he is offering as a competitor 

 of wood, he is not apt to roll out a barrel of cement and invite his 

 prospective customers to look at it; but ho shows them the most 

 perfect floor he can make, and endeavors to create in them a desire 

 for something like it. 



That is advertising and it is the kind that counts. Those who have 

 iiioditics made of wood ought to follow the same course. As 

 MS practicable, the finished article should be exhibited. An oak 

 scantling and an oak plank will not attract half the attention that 

 will be ilrawn to a. line table, cabinet, picture frame, or some other 

 of a hunilrod finished articles that might be made from the plank 

 xml scantling. A pile of clear lumber will interest) only the man 

 who is in the market for lumber; but if made up, it will attract 

 scores of jicople who would not look a second time at the rough 

 lumber. 



There is no question as to which will bring best results. The 

 approaching exposition is an invitation to the public to come and 

 see what >vood is good for, how wide is its range of uses, and how 

 well it meets all practical requirements. This end cannot be attained 

 unless a pretty complete line of manufacturing is carried out. Rav,- 

 material, exhibited in bulk, will not bring the desired result. Of 

 «ourse, the most that can be expected of an exhibitor is that he 

 •will show in the best possible way the commodity which he has for 

 «ale. If that is done, the exposition as a whole will be a success. 

 Wood will be shown superior to the host of substitutes which are 

 «ndeavoring to force their way into markets long held by wood. 



This will be the first time that a special exposition in the interest 

 of forest products has been held, and it will attract wide attention. 

 For that reason a great opportunity will be wasted if the best possible 

 «lmH ing is not made. 



Architects and Furniture Dealers 



THE COXTEOVEESY between furniture dealers and architects 

 concerning the advantages and disadvantages of built-in furni- 

 ture is not a lumberman 's fight. lie will sell the wood, no matter 

 whether the sideboarlls, cupboards, bookcases, and window seats are 

 fcuilt in when the house in built or bought separately afterwards. It 

 ■will take about the same amount of lumber in one case as in the other, 

 the difference, from the lumberman's standpoint, being in the pur- 

 chaser — whether it is the furniture factory or the planing mill which 

 fills the architect's or the builder's orders. 



A considerable change is taking place in the interior finisli of 

 bouses, particularly in cities. Permanent fixtures are gradually taking 

 the place of movable furniture. The bed that disappears in the wall 

 was one of the first innovations to encroach directly upon the domain 

 «f the furniture manufacturer. The excuse for the innovation was 

 the need of saving space in crowded apartments. Built-in book- 

 ■shelves and cupboards always had a standing, but the idea has lately 

 been carried farther than ever before, and the.se necessities and 

 luxuries are being multiplied. The unmovable sideboard came next. 

 Architects took advantage of the opportunity, and popularized the 

 annovation by making it harmonize with the interior finish of the 

 Tooms much better than was possible if the sideboard were purchaseil 

 ready made and set in place. The icebox follows the same course, 

 and is hidden away in a corner where it is not much in tlie way and 

 18 almost out of sight. 



The window seat has not yet put the davenport out of business, but 

 ■furniture dealers are afraid it will. Ilatracks and clothes presses are 

 in the same list. A furniture .journal recently predicted that the time 

 would soon come when about the only furnishings a family would need 

 to buy when moving into a new house would be a few chairs and rugs. 



The custom of including much of the furniture in the permanent 

 finish of houses is only following a practice which had long prevailed 

 in other quarters. Banks, stores, saloons, and many offices are equipped 

 with permanent fixtures, which constitute tlie kind of furniture needed 

 m carrying on the particular line of business intended. The manu- 

 facture of such fixtures is a large industry in this country. 



The architect suggests many advantages of fixed furniture for resi- 



liences. Its harmonious effect is oiic of them. Its cheapness and 

 convenience are others, because there are no moving bills to pay or 

 damages to make good when families come and go. On the other 

 hand, the furniture manufacturers and dealers are not without argu- 

 ment on their side. They charge fixed furniture with being insanitary, 

 and they protest against the monotony when looking at the same 

 objects and the same arrangement year in and year out. The privi- 

 lege of buying new things, when the old have grown tiresome, is 

 denied. Clieapness of the permanent furniture, they say, is more ap- 

 parent than real; for its cost is figured in the rent, or in the price if 

 the house is sold. 



Humanitarianism Pays 



THE NEW TIIOCCHT situks to api.ly nowadays as much to 

 methods of handling labor and in getting the highest eflSciency 

 from them as it does to the mere installation of modern equipment. 

 Various ideas have been tried out with more or less success in this 

 connection, but one which promises to be unnsually successful is being 

 put into operation by a large southern veneer concern located at 

 Louisville, Ky. For years the management of the Kentucky Veneer 

 Works, the concern in question, has been bothered each holiday sea- 

 son by the countless requests of small advances of five or ten dollars 

 to tide over the employe during the holidays. These advances were 

 not only annoying but in many cases resulted in actual loss to the 

 company. 



For some little time this concern has been working overtime several 

 days in each week and the idea was suggested by the mill foreman 

 recently that in order to induce the men to remain satisfied under 

 the overtime conditions and at the same time to successfully take 

 care of the advance money requests, the workmen be asked to allow 

 the company to hold up all overtime pav-meuts, the company to agree 

 to add ten. per cent in each case to the amount of overtime due on 

 , the payday before Christmas. The idea not only took immediately 

 but the men have been doing their utmost to make the overtime pile 

 up. In some cases quite a nice sum is already due to the better paid 

 men and before Christmas comes around the aggregate held in trust 

 will be quite considerable. However, this concern figures that it is 

 more than breaking even on the arrangement, besides avoiding all 

 the annoyance and apprehension of loss that was formerly experienced 

 under the old methods. The idea seems entirely a feasible one and 

 it might be that it could be successfully carried out by other concerns. 



Forestry for Laymen 



r^ XE OF THE COMMITTEE EEPOETS submitted to the recent 

 ^^ Conservation congress in Washington contained the following 

 pointed conclusion: "Too many schools are turning out professional 

 foresters, and not enough are teaching forestry to the layman." This 

 criticism of American forestry schools was doubtless not intended to 

 be as sweeping as it seems. It is a criticism of omission rather than 

 commission; a charge that this branch of education in America is 

 growing lopsided by developing the theoretical at the expense of the 

 practical. It may be inferred that the remedy lies in more education 

 for the man who owns timber and cuts lumber, and less catering to 

 that branch of forestry which deals with tree planting, estimating 

 the yield a hundred years ahead, studying the habits of dominant and 

 tolerant species, and numerous other phases of the science, which are 

 interesting but not very important in this country now. In other 

 words, the point of the criticism seems to be that there are too many 

 men who know why and too few who know how. 



A concrete case will illustrate what the committee probably had in 

 mind when it made the report. A timber company in the Lake states 

 employed three graduates of three high-class forest schools and sent 

 them, each to a different camp, to oversee the log cutting. Instruc- 

 ticms were to bank the ash, basswood, and elm logs separately. It 

 turned out that not one of the foresters could separate the logs ac- 

 cording to species, and all were thoroughly .mixed at the dump. These 

 young men could have formulated a plan of management for a planted 

 forest, according to the books, from tlie seedbed to the final harvest 

 eighty years in the future; but that was not the problem that faced 

 them when they went into the Michigan woods. They had been thor- 

 oughly drilled in European methods, but not in the practice of the 

 woods where they worked on their first jobs. 



