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floMwoMRocoM 



(.opyrlght, Thi Hardwood Compim, i»i7 



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

 Mill and ^K'oodworkmg Machinery, on the 10th and 23th of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Edgar H. Defebaugh, President 

 Edwin \^'. Meeker, Managing Editor 

 Hu Maxwell, Technical EdiloH 



Seventh Floor Ellsworth Building 



537 So. Dearborn Street. CHICAGO 



Telephones: Harrison 8086-8087-8088 



Vol. XLIV 



CHICAGO, DECEMBER 10, 19i; 



No. 4 



^i v6^y^^>-ox•A^■^J:o:ol^:A>lA!<s:/2ol^^'iA^>i^> 



Review and Outlook 



General Market Conditions 



STOCK BEPOKTS show ever-iaereasing restriction in the mana- 

 facture of lumber meeting requirements of commercial con- 

 sumption. This curtailment is brought about automatically in a 

 measure and in a measure br conscious effort on the part of produc- 

 ers. The evergrowing demand from TVashington is turning more 

 and more of sawmill capacity to the production of larger sizes of 

 special specifications and away from normal lines. 



Many millions of feet of hardwood lumber are piled up at mil l 

 points awaiting shipment on orders which were booked some time 

 ago. There has been very little tendency toward cancellation of 

 these orders and any wholesale cancellation is altogether unlikely, 

 as there is a growing realization that normal distribution of hard- 

 wood stocks will be a scarce article in the months to come. Then 

 again the lumber trade is consciously adopting the policy of 

 restricting its cut of normal sizes so far as is possible, both in 

 order to conserve capacity for government production, and to hold 

 down its stocks of sizes normally used in commercial work. 



Thus the prospect is that the new year will see a tendency toward 

 higher values than ever and toward a greater production in selling 

 effort necessary to place orders for lumber manufactured. The 

 concentration will be on lumber movements and the prospective 

 present is anything but rosy for the shipment of stocks going to 

 commercial plants. And such stocks must take their turn of filling 

 in between the movements on war business, and in comparison to 

 the past these shipments will be extremely infrequent. 



The menace of insufficient labor is growing more and more 

 ominous, and altogether producers in all lines are coming to realize 

 more keenly their present and future dependence upon govern- 

 ment business. 



The latter field presents an exceptionally rosy prospect for lum- 

 ber manufacturers who are manufacturing millions of feet in direc- 

 tions never counted upon heretofore. The big problem before lum- 

 ber manufacturers is in fact to analyze the tendency in the mak- 

 ing over of manufacture to war purposes, and to determine just 

 wherein this making over will affect markets for lumber. 



The automobile business presents a striking instance of this, as 

 curtailment in so-called pleasure car construction will not result in 

 idle plant facilities, but rather in the turning of those facilities 

 from production of pleasure cars with very little woodwork to 

 trucks and other working equipment using substantial amounts 

 of woodwork. 



Along the same lines the prospect of curtailment or cessation of 

 the manufacture of articles from the famous 500 list does not 

 present a blank or black future, but rather suggests a new course 



of events to which the lumbermen must shape their policies and 

 manufacturing methods. It is safe to say that very few war 

 articles and very little war equipment can be made or shipped with- 

 out the use of substantial quantities of wood. 



If sawmills are forced into idleness it will be because those in 

 charge are not in touch with new developments or because of labor 

 or shipping difficulties. It will not be because there are insufficient 

 markets available. 



The big task before the country today is to produce as never 

 before. Our success in the war and in commercial development 

 after the war will be in direct proportion to our increased produc- 

 tion. A large measure of this production will be in new channels, 

 and those channels converging at Washington will be of first con- 

 sideration. Production in normal commercial courses must take 

 what is left in materials and in shipping facilities. 



Are You Conserving Coal? 



AEECENT GOVEBNMEXT PUBLICATION STATES that 

 600,000,000 tons of coal were mined in the United States in 

 1916. It says that assuming only one-half of this to have been 

 used for industrial boiler plants, there are 75,000,000 tons of coal 

 wasted every year, as about one-fourth of the coal consumed in 

 industrial operations is lost through inefficient methods. Seventy- 

 five million tons of coal require 1,500,000 fifty-ton freight cars- 

 to move it. 



Do you believe that your furnaces are operating as efficiently 

 as possible? If you merely believe this and do not actually know 

 it, consider the following case cited as illustrating a fair average 

 throughout the country: 



One steel mill showed a waste of 40,000 tons a year, which at 

 five dollars valuation cost that company $200,000. This was a 

 modern plant and the load factor was unusually favorable to high 

 efficiency. Efficiency could easily have been raised to 75 per cent, 

 but a fourteen-day test showed that the boilers and furnaces were 

 operating on 55 per cent efficiency. 



This government paper coming from an anthoritative source 

 rather indicates that efficiency may be taken into consideration in 

 the future in the government's allotting of coal for different plants. 

 Under present conditions a plant which carelessly operates at an 

 efficiency of 40 to 50 per cent receives from the government the 

 same consideration in the delivery of coal as one whose efficiency 

 is 70 to 75 per cent. This obviously is unfair as well as wasteful. 



Operators using coal, no matter who they are or where they may 

 be, should bear in mind that this situation may be brought about 

 by inefficient methods of coal burning whereby the available coaL 



