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HARDWOOD RECORD 



March 25, 1918 



failures and attempts to point out the causes for one or the reasons 

 for the other. Anything of that kind will help a good cause. 



There are some thousands of practical lumbermen in this coun- 

 try who make it their daily business to study some part of the 

 lumber industrj-. They are little concerned with theory, and they 

 come directly to the point and search for ways to cut more lumber, 

 cut it better, produce it more cheaply, sell it for more, and better 

 meet the requirements of the users. They are making progress 

 along all of those lines, and the lumber business as a whole is 

 becoming more efEcient. 



A laboratory study, it may bo assumed, will concern itself more 

 with collecting and tabulating results worked out by others than 

 with tackling original problems which no lumberman has ever 

 seen or tackled. It may not be easy to discover any new problems 

 in fields where others have been working for generations, but new 

 solutions of old, problems are possible. 



Two master propositions confront all lumbermen. One is to 

 make lumber without making so much waste; the other is, to dry 

 lumber without so much cost in time and money. The man who 

 can discover something practical in either of these fields will be 

 a benefactor of lumbermen and of the lumber business. Thousands 

 of workers aud planners are edging in on both of these proposi- 

 tions all the while, and a little progress is noted from time to 

 time. Sometimes one man, if he happens to be an Isaac Newton 

 or an Edison, can go farther at one bound than thousands of others, 

 traveling in the same direction, have been able to go in years. 



No General Flood Yet 



IT BEGINS TO LOOK as though the lower Mississippi valley may 

 escape the customary spring flood. The snow went so grad- 

 ually that no large rivers experienced high stages of water. There 

 was some damage in the Ohio river, due principally to ice. It is 

 not probable that rains alone can put the lower Mississippi above 

 the danger line this spring. Floods seldom occur there unless rain 

 combines with melting snow, and not much more snow is to be 

 looked for during the spring, although rain in usual amounts is to 

 be expected. 



It is a matter of congratulation that the largest accumulation 

 of snow which the upper Mississippi valley has known in years 

 should pass away with so little flood damage. Three weeks of 

 mUd thawing weather, with little rain, did it. For a time the 

 danger of disastrous floods was so apparent that there was reason 

 for extreme uneasiness among lumbermen and mill owners from 

 Cairo downward. Memories of inundated regions where all log- 

 ging operations were forced to cease, are yet fresh in memory, 

 and it is fortunate that such misfortune has missed this year. 

 This good luck should bear results in better business; for not only 

 has the escape from high water enabled camps and mills to go 

 on with cutting logs and sawing lumber, but the railroads have 

 been spared the usual visitation of loss of time and equipment on 

 account of floods, and in consequence, transportation should be 

 better. 



Accumulating Need for Lumber 



EVEN THE CASUAL OBSEEVEE must have noticed that few 

 houses are being buUt these days and that ordinary repairs 

 of buildings, fences, and other structures are being held down to 

 the lowest possible level. The tendency is to put off such work 

 where it can be postponed. The cost of material is pretty high 

 and the price of labor is higher, and under these circumstances the 

 owners of property are disposed to put off improvements until 

 a more convenient season. 



These conditions have cut down the sales of lumber. Many 

 persons who need it are waiting for a better labor supply. Every- 

 body is hearing sermons and lectures on the necessity of the strict- 

 est economy in order that the government may have all the assist- 

 ance possible in carrying on the war. Those who need buildings or 

 have planned repairs are waiting for the end of the war. The end 

 is not in sight yet, but it will come; and after peace has been 

 established, it may be expected that demand for lumber will 

 greatly increase. Demands which have been accumulating since 



the war called a halt on building, will be brought forward, and 

 lumbermen must meet them. So far as can be foreseen, the call 

 for lumber will surpass anything like it in our past history. Eepairs 

 which have waited two or three years will be put off no longer, 

 and building plans that have been held back during a similar 

 period will be put forward for action. It may be expected that 

 the increased demand will clean out the accumulated stocks in 

 lumber yards in short order. There is always some uncertainty 

 when plans are based on what is to happen in the future; but so 

 far as can be foreseen, the end of the war will bring a period 

 of activity for lumbermen. 



Don't Carry a Chip 



THE STUPENDOUS JOB of creating America's war machine 

 has, according to what shows on the surface, been carried for- 

 ward with a record for absence of graft or scandal of other; kinds, 

 that can well give us cause for pride in the spirit of our nation. 

 That such an undertaking carried through as an over-night project 

 could be consummated without more lost motion, or waste or mis- 

 direction of money, is a tribute to the cause. 



Inasmuch as the country had not even the organization to make 

 the plans for the work, the first task was, of course, to select and 

 appoint such men as would logically fit. With some notable excep- 

 service has gone to men who in ordinary life would have interests 

 tions the selections have been wise but of necessity the call for 

 and training far apart. These men have had to be assimilated by 

 the whole system. So it necessarily follows that in their contact 

 with the manufacturing interests they frequently meet points of 

 view with which they are not familiar and which sometimes do not 

 seem, when taken at their face value, to be exactly right though 

 in the practical analysis are easily provable as sound. For in- 

 stance, there is the case of yellow pine ship timbers. Investigators 

 from the Shipping Board at Washington "revealed" great num- 

 bers of big trees from which fine ship timbers could be made. So 

 the Washington people let the impression get out that the yellow 

 pine men were not living up to their obligation to the nation in 

 the ship crisis. As a matter of fact the investigators entirely over- 

 looked the facts that many of these big trees were cypress and 

 not pine; that most of them were on tracts where no sawmills 

 existed; that it would require considerable extra time and equip- 

 ment to get at these far-off trees. So it was finally shown that the 

 yellow piner 's recommendations were practical and strictly in 

 accord with the best means of practically helping the ship pro- 

 gram. However, had either side entered the negotiations with a 

 chip on its shoulder the building schedule would have been held 

 up seriously. 



Of course it might not be wise to be over optimistic but it is 

 safe to assume that about everybody involved in the war work 

 either in administering the use of materials furnished or in fur- 

 nishing them is more than anxious to do the best he possibly can 

 for the nation. Granting that, it behooves every man taking a 

 part in the building of our war machine, whether he sells raw 

 material, buys raw material, sells equipment or buys equipment 

 whether he is with a private firm or a government department, 

 to bear in mind that each man he comes in contact with is actuated 

 by the same motives as he. If each man will come to realize that 

 the man or firm or department he is dealing with has in mind just 

 as he, that the first consideration is maximum service to the coun- 

 try there will be a minimum of waste in time and money. This is 

 no time to carry a chip on your shoulder when dealing with a man 

 in war work just because, though his being thrown by the necessi- 

 ties of the times into new fields of activity, he is not familiar with 

 all the practical problems of your pet business. There are not 

 many chips in evidence but there are a few and they should be 

 eliminated. 



We will probably some day come to the point of automatic grinders 

 for all manner of saws, even down to the hand saw, for the progress 

 in grinding wheels and machines is leading toward that point at a 

 very lively rate right now. 



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