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Copyright. Tjie Hardwood Company, 1921 



Published in the Interest of the American Hardwood Forests, the Products thereof, and Logging. Saw 

 Mill and Woodworking Machinery, on the 10th and 25th of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Edwin W. Meeker, \'ice Pres. and Editor 

 H. F. Ake, Secretary-Treasurer 

 Li-OYn P. Robertson, Associate Editor 



Seventh Floor, Ellsworth Building 

 537 South Dearborn St., CHICAGO 

 Telephone: HARRISON 8087 



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Vol. LII 



CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 10. 1921 



No. 2 



Review and Outlook 



BOTANICAL 



General Market Conditions 



THINGS ARE MOST ASSURP^DLY MOVING FAST with the 

 advancing autumn, the past two or three weeks having shown 

 a material progress towards normalcy of business and a better estab- 

 lishment of values. Hardwoods are moving today in satisfactory vol- 

 ume, the activity in the upper grades having communicated itself to 

 an increasing extent down the line into the less desirable varieties. 



Sufficient improvement has been noted to have changed the manu- 

 facturing plans of a certain percentage of mills who are in posi- 

 tion to follow their own choice in the matter of manufacturing or 

 closing down. While a few weeks ago it is probable that not more 

 than fifteen per cent of production was going forward, this has been 

 increased in the meantime from about twenty-five to thirty per cent. 

 However, there is hardly a possibility of any great speeding up in 

 production because this is a matter beyond the control of the.opera- 

 tors during the winter months, as the open season is apparently over. 

 Thus mills which have gone into the woods have done so for the pur- 

 pose of producing what logs they could before the shutdown, and 

 inasmuch as very few manufacturers have taken advantage of the 

 open fall season to any great extent, the quantity of logs available 

 for the winter cut will be very small. 



In the North, statistical information would indicate a very much 

 restricted input, although there is a considerable accumulation, 

 primarily, however, of the lower grades. With the gradual opening 

 up of the box and crating business, and the probability of consider- 

 able expenditures by railroails, measurable inroads may be expected 

 into its supply. 



Business is improving strictly because demand has greatly 

 increased. Bona fide orders are the rule of the day, and while there 

 is no indication pointing to a runaway market, the fact remains 

 that both the buyer and the seller are now convinced that hard- 

 wood lumber is good property on the present market. Advances 

 have been noted in quite a few items, and in fact so great has been 

 the depletion of some stocks that certain grades are now practically 

 out of the market. A careful survey of the walnut situation gives 

 positive evidence that those buyers who are not covered by late winter 

 will be strictly up against it. H.\RDW00D Record cautions buyers to 

 forget the skepticism with which they have always been willing to 

 fool themselves in considering stock reports and get into the marlet 



soon for walnut. They will suffer sorely for refusal to accept bona 

 tide reports of stock conditions. 



Consuming industries all along the line apparently are showing 

 quite some improvement, though one should very reasonably be 

 cautious in anticipating too great improvement from those lines 

 specifically serving the agricultural trade, as the fundamentals in 

 those fields are still far from satisfactory. However, the main 

 point is that business in general has most certainly passed the bot- 

 tom point and is now steadily, but consistently, climbing to a posi- 

 tion of much more satisfactory outlook. There still remains much 

 to be done before full normalcy is accomplished, but so far as hard- 

 woods are concerned, the man who can buy and is not now buying, 

 is surely piling up trouble for himself. 



Shyster Methods Doomed at Cleveland 



SHYSTER METHODS by either manufacturer or retailer of fur- 

 niture were given a death blow at au inspiring meeting called 

 by the vigilance committee of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the 

 World at Cleveland this week. The full report of the meeting occurs 

 elsewhere in this issue. Compulsory adoption by the whole industry 

 of the honest practices of the great bulk of its members, and the 

 total eradication of either intentional or unintentional misrepresenta- 

 tion of materials by manufacturer or retailer are the aims of the com- 

 mittee. And H.\RDW00D Record wishes to state, without qualification, 

 that the vigilance committee has already accomplished some far 

 bigger jobs than that involved in cleaning the "Augean Stables" 

 of the furniture industry. Having started the work and enlisted 

 the enthusiastic, support of big men in the game, the committee wiU 

 carry it through, and let no man be fooled as to the ability of these 

 gentlemen to make the thing stick once it is fully worked out. 



It is most unfortunate that, aside from manufacturers of walnut 

 and mahogany, no representatives of hardwood lumber, the veneer 

 or the plywood industries attended. To the plywood men, attendance 

 at the meeting was important in that discussion of the application 

 of plywood in cabinet making occupied a great deal of time. Pos- 

 sibly, too, the plywood men, had they attended, might have had 

 some good arguments to offer against the rejection of the officially 

 adopted term, "Plywood" in favor of "Built-up.'' 



Manufacturers of other domestic hardwoods, more especially gum 

 and birch, would have experienced conflicting emotions, had they 



