MnrLh 25, 1U18 



J ;<^:«o slM>:«>^su»yx:>MyK yto-^^^^ 



Local Hardwood Industries 



Editor's Note 



►i~"'.!'i,'l*.?.l-°?,'l™? before the present hardwood reBlons of the Cnlted States cease to supply liardwcods. Dls- 

 _. . . . ., . .... , , . ^^^ 



id- 



vrtu 



The hardwood factory that works on a large scale and reaches 

 the whole country or the whole world with its output is well 

 known, and its field of operations is understood by the public. 

 But there is a place in this country for concerns which are much 

 smaller. There is a local demand for hardwood products which 

 cannot readily be filled by distant factories; the problem of distri- 

 bution is too complicated and expensive. This provides the oppor- 

 tunity for the local shop which is in direct contact with tiie 

 people in its vicinity. Such a shop is necessarily small, and its 

 patronage comes from the immediate neighborhood; but within 

 that restricted field it fills an important place and provides the 

 community with such hardwood commodities as are needed. Shops 

 of that kind are found in all parts of the hardwood region, an^l 

 though each one is small, they amount to a great deal in the aggre- 

 gate, and consume much material in supplying the wants of their 

 customers. 



No reliable estimate can be made of the total consumption an- 

 nually of hardwoods by these local shops, scattered from Maine 

 to Texas and from Minnesota to Florida. There are no statistics. 

 The census taker who compiles figures on wood uses, never finds 

 them, or he thinks them too small to be worth bothering with. 

 Yet, if all such shops were listed and their output enumerated, 

 the aggregate would run into millions of feet, and the product 

 would be found in the homes of the people in the form of nearly 

 every conceivable article that can be made of hardwood. 

 A Typical Example 



During a recent journey of a representative of Hardwood Record 

 among the ranges of the Alleghany Mountains in West Virginia 

 he selected a typical hardwood shop of the kind referred to. It 

 was small and its patrons were the neighbors who lived ten or 

 fifteen miles around. The shop made handles for axes, hammers, 

 and other tools; rustic chairs for porches and kitchens; mauls 

 with which woodsmen split their cordwood and fence rails; cant- 

 hook handles for lumbermen; spinning wheels for the rural house- 

 wife who still follows the thrifty habits of her mother and grand- 

 mother; baskets for the barn and country store; flails for thresh- 

 ing the buckwheat; baseball bats for the local teams, and other 

 articles so numerous that a complete list would look like an inven- 

 tory of Dickens' "Old Curiosity Shop." 



The sign over the door of this village factory was "D. J. Nestor 

 & Son, Manufacturers." The senior member of the firm and his 

 son, the junior member, never have any strikes or labor disputes, 

 for they do all the work themselves, except that they occasionally 

 hire a farmer to bring in a load of logs. The proprietors have lived 

 there all their lives. They are wood experts. They do not claim 

 to know much about botany, dendrology, microscopy and wood tech- 

 nology, but they know good hickory, tough ash and excellent maple 

 when they see them, and the inspection in their shop is as rigid as 

 in Henry Ford's. They know the soil and the situation that pro- 

 duce the best wood, and they begin their inspection by selecting 

 the trees in forest before they are cut down. 

 The Tow.^i and Its People 



The shop is located in the village of St. George, in the northern 

 part of West Virginia. The town hag two factories, a harness shop 

 employing one or two men, and the hardwood shop. The town had 

 a sawmill 140 years ago, the irons for which were carried over the 

 mountains on pack horses by a Pennsylvania German whoso 

 neglected grave is concealed in an elder thicket in the center of the 

 village. Fifty years ago there was a "shook shop" where barrels 

 were made for the Cuba sugar trade. The finest white oak that 



ever grew was worked in that shop, and the man who worked it 

 is still living, old and gray-headed — Joseph Davis. Forty years 

 ago contractors skinned the country for walnut, and thirty years 

 ago they made St. George a buying center for hickory. 



These have been about the only industries the village has ever 

 known, except that it was the county seat a long time, and the 

 empty court house is falling to ruin since the seat of justice went 

 to a newer town. Yes, and the village was long a center and a 

 market for ginseng, dug by the mountaineers for twenty miles 

 around. Enough has been bought there to provide incense for all 

 the idols in China; but the ginseng days are about over in that 

 part of the country. 



The village with its forty or fifty families rests in peace between 

 the hills and the river. Most of the houses have had no paint since 

 the county seat was moved away twenty years ago, and the wooden 

 sidewalks are mostly gone; yet it is a village of happy, contented 

 people. Every house has a garden of an acre or so, land as rich 

 as the Delta of the Nile; and the people almost make their living 

 in the gardens, supplemented by flocks of chickens. The inhabitants 

 are supremely satisfied in this quiet, peaceful hamlet, "where the 

 wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Th» 

 town has no railroad, no stage line, no newspaper, no movies, one 

 store, one preacher and one doctor. The doctor, who has cured 

 the people 's physical ills for thirty-five years, is also a member 

 of the board of education, county commissioner and general ad- 

 viser on all social questions. He informed the writer that so 

 healthful is the climate and so healthy the people, that if a doctor 

 depended on practice alone for a living he would starve to death 

 every year. He gave it as his opinion that the cash monthly ex- 

 penditures of the people of the village do not average fifteen dol- 

 lars a family. The vegetable gardens and the poultry yards furnish 

 the rest. 



Getting the Viewpoint 



This somewhat detailed account of the village of St. George will 

 serve to give a viewpoint of the conditions under which the little 

 hardwood shop has been successfully conducted. The market is at 

 the door and a few miles in the country on all sides. Every house- 

 hold has an as, hatchet, hammer, hoe, shovel, rake, and chairs, and 

 all renewals of handles or other parts, with few exceptions, come- 

 from the little village factory where two men find steady employ- 

 ment. 



The representative of Hardwood Eecord spent an interesting and 

 profitable hour in the shop. The demand keeps pace with produc- 

 tion, and stock is sold about as fast as it is finished. The market 

 is mostly local, but the manager stated with evident pride that 

 he had just made a shipment of chairs to Hlinois to one of his 

 former customers who had "gone West." He related with equal 

 pride that he had a repeat order from the Babcock Lumber Com- 

 pany for canthook handles. The village harness maker who hap- 

 pened to be by, and not wishing to be outclassed in a trade way, 

 volunteered: "Yes, and Isold twelve sets of harness in one order 

 to the Kendall Lumber Company." So these small village shops 

 have some trade beyond their immediate neighborhood. 

 Chairs and Handles 



The principal articles made are chairs and handles. The former 

 make no pretense of competing with the factory-made chairs on the 

 general market. They are very strong, but not highly finished. No 

 paint or varnish is seen on them and no glue is used in their con- 

 struction. They are left in the natural color of the wood, a condi- 

 (Continved on page SS) 



—23— 



