August 10, 1917 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



ly annealed. The special body parts shown on the drawings, 

 except hinges and hinge butts, may be made of best quality mal- 

 leable iron or forged steel. The hinges and hinge butts must be 

 made of forged steel. The ends of all bolts are to be sawed off 

 practically flush with the outside of nuts, and the ends of bolts 

 slightly riveted over nuts to prevent loosening, but not enough to 

 prevent the removal of the nuts with a wrench. 



10. Screws not permitted: All parts of the truck bodies must 

 be connected by means of bolts and nuts. The use of wood screws 

 or nails will not be permitted in any part of the body construction. 



*The specifications and blue prints for bodies should be modified 

 as follows: Cottonwood not to be used in any part of bodies; floors 

 may be yellow pine, oak or ash. Sides and front end may be yellow 

 pine, poplar or gum. Tail gates may be yellow pine, oak or ash. 



The preparation of standard motor truck specifications followed 

 conferences between army engineers and quartermasters and trans- 

 portation experts and 1.5 chief engineers representing the truck 

 manufacturers of the United States. The writer was unable to 

 ascertain at the War Department or elsewhere the quantity of 

 hardwood lumber required for 7.5,000 trucks, but it is big. 



The number of passenger automobiles for army uses is very 

 large, it is understood. The drain on the stand of hickory timber 

 in the United States for materials for the wheels will consequently 

 be great. Oak and some of the lighter hardwoods will be used 

 extensively in the bodies of these cars. Where hickory can not be 

 gotten readily, Forest Service experts believe that it will be neces- 

 sary to use substitutes, including elm and maple, for various auto 

 parts. 



One well-known hardwood lumberman said some time ago that 

 he knew of 200 cars of hardwood lumber being ordered from a 

 single locality for government purposes. It was chiefly ash for 

 gun carriage stock and other purposes. Uncle Sam's requirements 

 of hardwoods for artillery are more or less problematical. One 

 ordnance ofiicer of the army gave an unofficial estimate of 90,000 

 artillery wheels of wood to be provided. That was before the recent 

 report that $2,000,000,000 additional ap|iropriation will be asked 

 of Congress in the near future to provide big field guns for the 

 American armies, which will require hickory wheel stock, other 

 hardwoods and metal for the gun carriages, caissons, etc. 



But even the old artillery program calling for fewer guns offers 

 chances for the American producers of hickory to help their gov- 

 ernment in very important ways. The particulars of the artillery 

 program requirements are not public property, but there is no 

 objection in stating that hickory of high-grade and in large quanti- 

 ties is wanted for the wheels of the gun carriages. Hickory and 

 oak and possibly some other hardwoods will also be required for 

 the so-called gun limbers, caissons and ammunition transport 

 vehicles like caissons. 



Not less than 200,000,000 feet of lumber for packing boxes, cases, 

 crates and barrels and other cooperage is wanted by the army and 

 navy during the year, it is understood. Much of the box material 

 is of soft woods, but some of it is of hardwoods, the proportions 

 being unobtainable at the Quartermaster General 's office at Wash- 

 ington, because it was stated there that the various local quarter- 

 masters are constantly buying whatever they need for these con- 

 tainers. 



Efforts are being made to work out uniform specifications for 

 containers and container stock for the marine corps, the army and 

 the navy. Not only are the direct requirements of the military 

 forces along the line of containers very much greater than before 

 the declaration of war, but hundreds of factories, mills and other 

 industrial establishments all over the country are engaged in pro- 

 ducing ammunition, weapons of various kinds, equipment and sup- 

 plies, clothing, etc., all of which require great quantities of boxes, 

 eases and other containers to ship them to the army depots. 



The total peace time requirements of the United States for 

 container material was 4,500,000,000 feet of lumber, including over 

 400,000,000 feet of red gum, 211,000,000 cottonwood, 165,000,000 

 yeUow poplar, 96,000,000 maple, 90,000,000 birch, 90,000,000 bass- 



* Hardwood Recokd has blueprints for Class A and Class B auto 

 bodies for the inspection of anyone who might desire to see them. 



wood, 78,000,000 beech, 75,000,000 tupelo, 63,000,000 elm, 56,000,- 

 000 oak, 36,000,000 chestnut, 16,000,000 sycamore, 10,000,000 ash, 

 and proportionate quantities of other varieties. From these figures 

 one might make a guess of the increased requirements of hard- 

 wood box material by the country and the government during the 

 current year. 



The cooperage stock will, of course, be hardwoods, as customary 

 — oak, ash, elm, etc., — but no estimates are at hand as to the 

 (juantity. 



With the expansion of the United States cavalry, artillery, 

 signal corps and wagon transport, and the vast increase in the 

 number of officers, the demand for saddles to be ridden by mounted 

 military men is becoming very great. In that connection the 

 army supply branch not only has to wrestle with the problem of 

 the scarcity qf leather, but ^Iso with the hardw.ood situation. For 

 the military saddles are based upon a wooden saddle tree of 

 peculiar style for which high grade poplar, birch and other hard- 

 woods are understood to be required in considerable quantities. 

 The total amount of wood required for these saddle trees, it is 

 believed, must be some hundreds of thousands of feet. 



There is a large but indefinite demand for hardwoods for the 

 distillation of alcohol and other chemicals for government purposes. 



Railroads are now used extensively for army transportation pur- 

 poses even to points near the battle fronts and the United States 

 government is already on the market for hundreds of thousands of 

 ties, bridge timbers, material for terminal construction, etc. So 

 far most of this sought is yellow pine, but it is believed that the 

 government's requirements will later afford a chance for the ship- 

 ment of some of these products in hardwoods to France. This 

 takes no account of Russia's demand for railroad material and 

 equipment. 



There is every reason to believe that this government will soon 

 be shipping thousands of railroad cars across the ocean, if it is 

 not already doing it. France is well known to be in straits for 

 materials and equipment for her railroad system. It is not known 

 whether the United States government will build or contract for 

 large fleets of new railroad freight ears of various types, or 

 whether it will ship across thousands of second-hand cars, in ac- 

 cordance with the suggestion of Newman Erb, the railroad man. 



In either event, however, somebody will be on the market for 

 plenty of cars soon, as there are not enough freight ears in the 

 United States now, and the result will be a big demand for oak 

 and other hardwood lumber suitable for car stock. The quantity 

 depends upon the orders whether they be from the government or 

 the railroads. 



In legislative and administrative circles here it has been serious- 

 Iv suggested that this government should spend a hundred or two 

 million dollars for freight cars so as to insure the government's 

 war requirements, not to mention the people of the country, against 

 possible disaster from car shortage. Mr. Erb has suggested that 

 the government might advance the necessary money for the con- 

 struction of the ears and let the railroads reimburse the federal 

 treasury for the expenditure in installments spread over a period 

 of years. It has been rumored, but not confirmed, that the Coun- 

 cil of National Defense has been busy on negotiations for the con- 

 struction of 100,000 freight cars for war and commercial purposes. 

 If auv of these propositions should be worked out — and it is not 

 unlikely that one of them will — hardwooti car stock would be quite 

 popular. 



There is no doubt that the government will require for its army 

 ureat quantities of timber and lumber for roads and bridges, trench 

 linings, dugouts, tunnels, military mines, etc., to say nothing of the 

 expansion of manufacturing plants, shipping port terminals, coal 

 and metal mining operations, etc., to take care of the government 

 needs, which expansion will call for timber and lumber in quanti- 

 ties. 



Much of the timber and lumber for strictly military purposes 

 will doubtless be softwoods, and all of it possibly will be obtained 

 from the forests of France and other European countries. United 



