34 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Ui-reinber 25, 1917 



than thirty years, and we cleaned up over 15,000,000 feet of lumber 

 off of it, and now the land is worth fifty dollars an acre and it hasn't 

 been cleared yet. ' ' 



Selecting veneer logs is no easy task, and often the log buyer 

 must spend a good deal of time in the log yard in order to secure 

 enough figured timber to cut 20,000 to 40,000 -feet of logs a day. 

 Every figured log is a profitable possibility, but it should be recog- 

 nized that in selecting such timber there is as much lottery about it 

 as in buying a share in the Kio de Janeiro lottery, as even after a 

 tree is cut you are not dead sure it is all right then. In the selec- 

 tion and putting on the market of high-grade veneers, no matter 

 whether the wood is gum or oak or any other material, special care 

 in getting the logs will not always prevent you from being thor- 

 oughly surprised at some defect cropping out that may be an ex- 

 pensive luxury. However, this business is growing rapidly and 

 some of the best equipped plants in the South are being utilized 

 to put this stock on the market, and the golden rule for success in 

 an operation of this kind is everlasting watchfulness. 



Fred Conn of the Bayou Land and Lumber Company, which has 

 a large plant at Lindsay, Miss., in discussing the subject of car 

 loading recently said they endeavored to get the maximum loading 

 at all times, and he hoped the time would come when the railroads 

 would have terminals, and cars and employes enough to take care 

 of the country's needs. 



C. A. Marsh of the Marsh & Truman Lumber Company, Chicago, 

 spent several days in the Memphis territory. He reports plenty of 

 business, but that it is necessary to put forth every effort to get 

 delivery of stock. He states that Capt. Fletcher Marsh, who is 

 in Uncle Sam's employ doing some special purchasing for the gov- 

 ernment, is having a busy time, but enjoys the work very much. 

 Capt. Fletcher Marsh is an active young man, and no doubt will fill 

 a big niche, because he is studious and digs into anything he has to 

 do, and learns all about it. 



It is a funny thing that we have to go through the same course of 

 sprouts every year without learning any lesson from it. Shipping in 

 transit of lumber if the market happens to be a little bit off or 

 the demand not up as it should be for a few days is the curse of 

 the industry. You can occasionally forgive a man when he has 

 a paper to meet within thirty days and does not know how to get 

 the money except by cutting the price, but I could never figure 

 out how he can feel any assurance of getting the money when he 

 lets loose of a car not knowing its destination, whether he will get 

 a customer for it, or what he. will get for it. If trade is a little 

 slow, it is easy to understand how the buyer reasons that it is 

 time for a reduced price. Either the manufacturers are scared, or 

 the let-up in demand has made them anxious to move stock, and 

 there is no chance to know how cheap it is going to sell. There 

 is a lot of lumber sold each year by auctioneers, and they do more 

 to "bust the market" than anyone else, and therefore why will a 

 manufacturer continue to encourage the auctioneering off of his 

 lumber in the big markets and thus add to his own grief? 



The official family of the Chicago Mill & Lumber Company was 

 well represented at the Helena operations this last month. Treas- 

 urer O'Connell, Manager Ed. Lang of the lumber department, and 

 Secretary Chas. Wiedeman were all visiting their respective de- 

 partments, and having a session with Manager Nelson of Helena 

 and Vice-President Lang of Blytheville. 



Among those included in Chicago visitors this past month was 

 Mark Brown of Brown & Hackney, Inc., who was purchasing ma- 

 chinery and equipment for their new mill in Louisiana, where they 

 will manufacture gum, ash, oak, and cypress. They have 6,000 acres 

 of timberland back of Transylvania, and are building four miles of 

 standard gauge raUroad to reach same. The corporate name of this 

 institution will be the Brown-Hackney Lumber Company,a Delaware 

 corporation doing business in Louisiana. The officers of same will 

 be: R. J. Hackney, president; M. H. Brown, vice-president and 

 treasurer; J. C. Thompson, secretary. They will move their mill and 

 operations from Mounds, Ark., where they have closed down, but 

 still have about 2,000,000 feet in the yard. 



R. H. Darnell, president of R. J. Darnell, Inc., always makes a trip 



or two North each month. This last time he was visiting customers 

 trying to see how they are fixed for the new year's supply. He is 

 cntliiisijistic iiliDut the 1918 demands, especially on particular stock. 



E. H. D. 



Memphis Anxious Over Logs 



The end of the year is close at hand and the railroads have not 

 Ijogun furnishing relief to lumber manufacturers. The Valley 

 Log Loading Company of Memphis has stated, through its presi- 

 dent, John W. Dickson, that it had loaded only 350 cars of logs 

 this month for mills at Memphis and elsewhere on the Yazoo & 

 Mississippi Valley line of the Illinois Central system, as against 

 normal loading of 1,000 cars for the same period. This means that 

 this company is securing about 33 per cent of the number of cars 

 it ought to be receiving and the showing on the Yazoo & Mis- 

 sissippi Valley line is a great deal better than that on the Mem- 

 phis-Marianna cut-oflE on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, 

 on which this firm operates, and on any other road running into 

 Mempliis. Bad weather has handicapped the company slightly in 

 loading on the upper end of the Yazoo & Mississippi line, but 

 three out of four of its loaders are working where there has been 

 no snow, with the result that the shortage in loading is directly 

 traceable to the lack of ears. 



And, because of the lack of logs, hardwood production at Mem- 

 phis and throughout the Memphis territory is only a fractional 

 part of what it should be. The unprecedontedly heavy snow and 

 extreme temperature prevailing for the past ten days have proven 

 a serious handicap to lumber manufacturers, but the greatest with 

 which they are having to contend is the lack of logs, directly 

 traceable to the lack of cars. Everything considered, it is probably 

 not overshooting the mark to say that for the past fortnight the 

 amount of lumber manufactured in this part of the country has 

 been the smallest for the corresponding period for more than ten 

 years. Many of the mills did not operate at all last week and 

 part of them are closed down now. 



And yef^ it is stated on the authority of officials of the Valley 

 Log Loading Company that there are 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 feet 

 of timber awaiting transportation to Memphis from the delta alone 

 and that there are 1,500,000 feet between the yards of the Illinois 

 Central system at Nonponnah, just south of the city, and Lake 

 View, Miss., which will be subject to overflow this spring in the 

 event of as high water as was experienced last year. Some firms 

 have 1,000 to 2,000 cars of logs ready for delivery to their mills 

 and no cars on which to move them. And all the pressure being 

 lirought to bear on the railroads is bringing no measure of relief. 



Officials of the Southern Hardwood Traffic Association say that 

 the railroads are not furnishing anything like 50 per cent of the 

 requirements of the lumbermen in the way of cars for handling 

 outbound shipments. And they report that, in the case of the 

 Missouri Pacific system, lumbermen are being shut out altogether 

 in the matter of box cars on the claim that, after priority ship- 

 ments are taken care of, there are no box cars left. This road 

 is furnishing box cars where government orders are concerned, 

 but it is refusing box cars to lumbermen unless they have such 

 orders. The association believes that the Missouri Pacific system 

 is exceeding its authority in jilacing this construction on priority 

 orders and it is making an eff^ort now to bring about a recession 

 from the position taken. But all the roads are short on equipment 

 to such an extent that they are in no shape to meet the require- 

 ments of the lumbermen except in a most restricted way. 



J. H. Townshend, secretary-manager of the Southern Hardwood 

 Traffic Association, arrived in Washington December 20 to take 

 part in the hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 

 the case involving higher rates and change of weights on lumber 

 shipments to Pacific coast points. The association has already 

 gone on record with a strong protest against the changes contem- 

 plated by the carriers. 



