HARDWOOD RECORD 



Getting Together on Hardwood Inspection. 



The situation in the handling of hardwood afixirs in this country, 

 is, to say the least, very peculiar. Hardwood manufacturers of the 

 United States as a class are of the highest type of business men. 

 The jobbing element ranks just as high, and the consumers of 

 hardwood lumber in the aggregate include men of wealth and high 

 commercial standing. From the stumpage owner to the consumer, 

 the entire hardwood business of this country is handled on high 

 commercial lines, save in the one important essential of inspection. 

 Hardwood associations and exchanges within the country number 

 perhaps a score, but even the widest extended of any of these 

 organizations is sectional in its makeup. Praeticallv ail of them 

 have individual rules of inspection and specific methods of their 

 application, with a result that the entire range of hardwood com- 

 merce througuout the country and abroad, involves endless misun- 

 derstandings, bickerings and losses, which result in the manifest 

 lowering of the commercial status of the entire industry. The 

 Hardwood Record regrets to be obliged to make this statement of 

 fact, but fact it is. 



Every prominent man who has interested himself in hardwood 

 inspection during the past few years professes to be a believer 

 in the desideratum of universal inspection. In many cases he 

 goes so far as to say that he believes in uniform inspection. Why 

 then cannot these foremost men in one of America's leading indus- 

 tries get together and agree on what they profess to think em- 

 inently desirable? The reason they cannot is clearly marked in 

 quite a number of cases. Men who have grown up with sundry 

 associations and exchanges have fixed beliefs that the rules they 

 have formulated anc put into practice, to a greater or less degree, 

 are the only rules by which universal inspection can be justly 

 accomplished. They are not willing to relinquish any part of their 

 rules or method of application, in the face of their protestations 

 that they desire and are seeking a uniform system whereby hard- 

 wood lumber may be inspected and shipped to any point at home 

 or abroad with a definite understanding as to the grade. They 

 allege they are willing to compromise on a joint system of inspec- 

 tion; but, when the time for action materializes, their idea of a 

 compromise is analagous to the old farmer's statement that he 

 and his wife had succeeded in living in perfect harmony for forty 

 years, simply because tney had always agreed to settle all matters 

 of difference by compromise. The old gentleman eventually ex- 

 plained that the basis of this arrangement consisted in letting 

 his wife have her own way. 



Thus a great many men prominent in hardwood affairs, are so 

 prejudiced in their belief that they think their way is the only 

 way of justly accomplishing universal hardwood inspection. While 

 they do not say so outright, their attitude plainly indicates that 

 they want universal inspection if they can have it in strict accord- 

 ance with their own rules and methods; otherwise they will con- 

 tinue to be obstructionists to the end of the game. 



It is time that hardwood affairs were amended and that the 

 greatest good of the greatest number of people interested in the 

 production, merchandising and consuming of hardwoods should 

 have a fair showing and fair play. It is time that a hardwood 

 congress was called together and an amicable arrangement effected 

 whereby a base of universal inspection could be established, and 

 an application of the rules thus formulated be placed in the hands 

 of a non-partisan and impartial inspection bureau, made up from 

 all parties in interest, under the direction of a superintendent of 

 character, ability and experience. 



A set of grading rules for American hardwoods and a logical 

 method of their application should be taken up by representative 

 and practical men interested in the production, merchandising and 

 consumption of these woods. They should follow the lines estab- 

 lished by the white and yellow pine men of the country, who have 

 brought their systems of inspection and of business to a practical and 

 satisfactory consummatiou, both to themselves and to their patrons. 

 Let these people get together and decide what is just for themselves 

 and what will be satisfactory to consumers, and establish something 

 like universality in hardwood production and inspection, and the 

 result will not only be witisfnelory to everyone concerned, but will 

 be highly profitable to all the parties in interest. 



Manufacturers have no desire to stock up with unsatisfactory and 

 unmarketable grades, and any practical grade that can be agreed 

 upon will be gauged by its value. The producer must receive a just 

 value for the log run lumber he handles through his mill, to insure 

 him a profit and a continuity of his business. In hardwood inspec- 

 tion matters in the past, too much stress has perhaps been laid on the 

 exact inspection required for a specific grade. This detail of inspec- 

 tion is largely inconsequential. What is wanted is something like 

 uniformity in grades that will be satisfactory to all, and such grades 

 once established will be followed by a just price. A price never 

 made a grade, but a grade will establish a price. 



The time is ripe for this desideratum. The hardwood traue of 

 this country is crying aloud for it. This method will straighten 

 out the tangles, the misunderstandings, the bickerings and the 

 rebate claims, the hard feelings and the crudities of this business, 

 and put it into form where it shall have the same standard that 

 prevails in other foremost American industries. 



It is in no wise the intention of the Hardwood Eecord to intimate 

 that the past or prospective work of the existing hardwood associa- 

 tions and exchanges has been devoid of practical results. They have 

 accomplished much good work and have still worthy achievements 

 awaiting their attention. Each one has local interests that can best 

 be served and protected in no other way than through the medium of 

 association endeavor, and the suggestion here outlined in no wise con- 

 templates anything but their continuance, but in the interest of com- 

 mon good, they should join in th? endeavor to establish a set of uni- 

 form inspection rules that shall be satisfactory and devise a plan 

 whereby these rules may be applied justly and impartially in 

 universal practice. 



The Scramble for Hardwood Stumpage. 



There is a veritable scramble throughout all the hardwood sections 

 of the South for timber properties containing even a reasonable pro- 

 portion of white and red oak. Timber that went begging at nominal 

 values two years ago, is now being transferred at prices ranging from 

 $5 to $10 an acre, and in some cases much higher. 



The same conditions prevail in the northern hardwood area, and 

 siune values that have recently obtained for Michigan hardwood lands 

 showing a good percentage of maple, are simply marvelous as com- 

 pared with the prices set upon them even two years ago. The big 

 operators in the northern portion of the southern peninsula of Michi- 

 gan are absorbing all the hardwood timber to be had at anything like 

 a reasonable value, as they are just beginning to appreciate the pos- 

 sibilities that can be secured from this class of stumpage. Many of 

 these larger operators have withdrawn their stump lands from the 

 market and are converting what was formerly known as ' ' woods 

 refuse" into wood chemicals of various sorts and charcoal, and sev- 

 eral of them are going even further than this and have erected blast 

 furnaces, and will produce a very high grade of pig iron. In fact a 

 finer manipulation of forest [unliits, and therefore a possibility of 

 larger returns from stumpage, has stimulated values to a very high 

 point throughout the lower peninsula of Michigan. 



The mixed hardwood and hemlock growth of the northern peninsula 

 of Michigan and of the hardwood belt of Wisconsin is also being 

 absorbed very fast, although prices there have not yet achieved the 

 high range that has obtained for southern peninsula of Michigan 

 woods, owing largely to the fact that the quality of the maple in that 

 section is not as good as it is in lower Michigan. On the contrary, the 

 Wisconsin basswood and birch is of a higher type than their Michigan 

 prototj'pes, although not very prolific in growth. 



Inferior hardwoods in what has been known as remote timber sec- 

 tions of the country are also fast coming into the market, and a good 

 many purchases have lately been made, and others are being sought, 

 all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, from the Dismal Swamp to 

 Texas. 



Comparatively little cypress stumpage is changing hands as most 

 of it was secured to large operators several years ago. 



With this scramble for hardwoods so manifest, it will not be long 

 before the remaining hardwood area of the country will be as thor- 

 oughly in the hands of operators as is the white pine and yellow pine 

 of the country. 



