June 25, 1917 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



43 



There are a number of consumers who labor under 

 the impression that small panels are a sort of by-product; 

 that is to say, are made out of waste, and consequently 

 should command a much lower price. Such is not the 

 case, however, because it actually costs more money to 

 build up a small panel than it does one of average size. 

 The fact of the matter is, that where small dimensions are 

 specified, such panels are made in multiples. 



Very frequently panels or built-up stock is exposed 



only on one side; but w^here panels show on both sides, 

 such as doors, they should be sanded on both sides. 



A good many customers assume that the panel manu- 

 facturer understands their requirements, and for that 

 reason very frequently omit necessary information. 



Order blanks should be so printed as to cover all the 

 requirements of an order and should be distributed 

 among consumers, which w^ould expedite matters to a 

 very considerable extent. 



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Americas ISS or ihrnost Lumberman 



John Barrack, ex-mayor of Fairl)anks, Alaska, recently spent a 

 week iu Chicago, and later returned west, and expects to reach home 

 about July 1, after an absence of six months. On the day he left 

 home the thermometer was G8 below zero. He is taking to Alaska 

 a sawmill and an equipment of woodworking machinery, including 

 planers, resaws, and molding machines. He expects to set up the 

 mill some 400 miles back from the coast on the line of the railroad 

 which the government is building from the coast to the interior. 

 His purpose is to work up the native spruce. He will also work 

 birch and aspen if any uses can be found for these woods. There 

 are sawmillg in that country, but Mr. Barrack believes that an open- 

 ing exists for forest products other tlian rough lumber and he pur- 

 poses to test the matter by a trial. 



He is not looking beyond the local market for his sales, but he 

 believes that his mill, which is of moderate size only, will get all 

 the business it can do. He is enthusiastic in his hopes of Alaska 's 

 future, and expects to see vast areas of it covered with cattle. This 

 expectation is based on the fact that herds of moose and elk live 

 on the wild grass which in places covers the hills and valleys knee 

 deep. Certain field crops promise great things also, particularly 

 potatoes. It has been found that the hills where birch grows will 

 produce excellent potatoes, and gradually other crops are proving 

 their value. Potatoes grow in soil with two or three feet of the 

 surface thawed, and frozen for a hundred feet below. 



Not a Novice 



Mr. Barrack is not a novice in the lumber business, in botli the 

 producing and selling ends. He owned and operated one of the 

 first sawmills in Idaho, about fifty years ago. Before that time he 

 drove an ox team from his home in Chicago (1860) to the Pacific 

 Coast. He is now seventy-six years old, but does not consider age 

 any handicap, and he looks upon a daily hike of thirty-five miles 

 over the Alaska hills as good exercise, though occasionally a little 

 lame from a bullet received in the knee while fighting Indians in 

 Idaho fifty-five years ago. 



He has been in Alaska nearly twenty years, and now sells hard- 

 wood lumber as an adjunct of his hardware and mine equipment 

 business at Fairbanks. His is the most northern lumber yard in 

 America. 



The hardwood business is somewhat peculiar in that far northern 

 country. Hardwood is looked upon as hardware, and is kept in 

 stock in the store along with stoves, derricks, pumps, wheelbarrows, 

 and dynamite. It is no more left out of doors than machinery is 

 left out. 



DlSTKIBUTIOX AXD PRICE 



The hardwoods kept for sale are white oak and hickory. Only 

 the highest grades are handled, which are the woods grown in 

 Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The lumber comes in 

 the form of planks from two to four inches thick, and is bought iu 

 Seattle and shipped across the Pacific to the mouth of the Yukon 

 river and up that stream two thousand miles, and up a branch 

 stream to Fairbanks. The freight is $100 a thousand feet. The 

 planks come with the ends painted, and each piece is separately 

 wrapped in gunny sacking, to prevent checks and bruises. 



This wood is used in the repair of wagons and machines. Attempts 

 to substitute paper birch have failed, and oak and hickory hold 

 the market. The wood is sold at retail at about ninety cents a 

 square foot, which is $900 a thousand. The store that sells it has 

 a woodworking plant, with a bandsaw, and the plank which a 

 customer buys is worked for him into the particular articles he 

 wants, such as wagon tongues, pump rods, or handles. For this 

 service he pays a dollar an hour for the use of the machine and 

 two dollars an hour for the man who operates the machine. 

 The Native Woods 



A little flooring has been made of native birch, which is paper 

 birch, but it is unsatisfactory. The seasoning problem is difficult, 

 and the wood is neither hard nor strong. Cheaper flooring is made 

 of native spruce, which is white spruce in the interior and Sitka 

 spruce near the coast. Cement floors are not popular, as cement 

 costs $140 a ton. The highest grades of the native spruce of the 

 interior of Alaska are reserved for the bottoms of sluice boxes in 

 the mines. Widths of eighteen and twenty inches are wanted, 

 but only the largest trees will cut lumber that wide, and only a 

 few boards to the tree. The run of the spruce requires fifteen logs 

 for a thousand feet of lumber. Though trees are quite tall, they 

 are very slender. Balm of Gilead and aspen abound, but trees are 

 usually small. The principal softwood imported is Douglas fir from 

 Seattle. It is the flooring material iu the better class of houses. 



The country has reached a state of development where uses of 

 good grades of lumber may be expected to increase. It is passing 

 out of the rough, primitive condition. This is apparent from the 

 fact that in the last year Mr. Barrack's store in Fairbanks sold 

 sixty automobiles. Motor trucks are becoming not only desirable 

 but necessary. The laws, which are generally rigidly enforced, 

 do not permit horses to be taken out of stables when the cold 

 is greater than fifty below zero; but the truck with its gasoline 

 motor goes in any kind of weather, and has come to be an im- 

 portant winter vehicle, and makes possible the prosecution of busi- 

 ness during the long period of extremely cold weather. The truck 

 is doing its share in putting the dog team out of business. When 

 the railroad, now under construction, shall be completed, it is 

 predicted that the interior of Alaska will astonish the world 

 with its rate of development. Mr. Barrack, who is acquainted not 

 only with his native country, Scotland, but also with other parts 

 of Northwest Europe, firmly believes that Alaska will surpass all 

 of them in development and wealth. His faith is so strong that 

 he is willing to risk a woodworking factory that will depend far 

 its support on local demand hundreds of miles back from the coast. 



Tlie uants in planing machinery run to extremes these days. 

 Some people want heavy machines, heavier than ever before, while, 

 on the other hand, there are people wanting very light machines 

 that are portable, and can be moved about from place to place. 



When a nut or setscrew turns hard, look for the cause, rather than 

 try to force it. A broken casting may be mended, but a little fore- 

 thought may prevent the break. 



