8 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



wealth shall be done, which will be accomplished within the next 

 quarter of a century, the mountains will still be there, the rivers will 

 be there, and so will the flowers, the great cliffs of rocks, the sun- 

 shine and the rain. When the lumbermen are done the government 

 can take over this great property at a price that will be satisfactory 

 alike to its owners and to the public. It can then make a national 

 park, rehabilitate the forests and create not only an unrivaled na- 

 tional playground but establish a permanent timber reserve for the 

 eastern part of the continent that shall be an enterprise worthy of 

 national endeavor. That this can be accomplished it is only neces- 

 sary to rite that today, growing on every mountain Bide hitherto 

 denuded ,,t' its commercial woods are stands of fine and thrifty young 

 timber. 



The Barrel Industry. 



A current newspaper paragraph makes some inti i ents 



concerning the American cooperage industry which is the largest in 

 the world. It is alleged that there are upwards of 300,000,000 barrels 

 an.l circular packages manufactured in this country annually, with a 

 constant increase in the output. The largest consumption of barrels 

 is in the cement business, which approximately demands 55,000,000 

 a year; Sour comes next with a demand for 22..~>oo,oon barrels; 

 fen.,, staples, bolts, nuts and nails require 15,000,000; sugar. 1".- 



000, : roasted coffees, spices, crockery, fruit and vegetables use 



about .3,000,000 battels a year, while the glassware, baking powder, 

 candy, tobacco and cheese trade each usi ■ ".i to 3,000,000 



barrels annually. The consumption of barrels for distilled liquors, 

 molass.s, lard, pork, etc., is also enormous; while dry paint, glue, 

 snuff, oatmeal, screws, castings and general hardware consume a 



wonderful number of these packages. 



The introduction of modern machinery into barrel making has 



not only cheapened the pure but enabled th | lucere to keep up 



with the constantly increasing demand. The old-time cooper's trade 

 was a skilled one, and the work of cutting oul the staves and as- 

 sembling them required a long apprenticeship. Today machinery 

 perforins the work in a fraction of the time that hand labor for- 

 merly did. Modem veneer machines have contributed very largely 

 in reducing the cost of barrels. 



The barrel is the strongest known package, and its general shape 

 and character have shown no improvement in centuries. The first- 

 class barrel package must have a resistance power equal to a lateral 

 pressure of five hundred pounds. The wonderful character of this 

 package can be realized when it is analyzed that it must not only 

 safely protect the often great weight of its contents, but its staves 

 must be able to resist ' ' pointed pressure ; " it must be able to with- 

 stand tiering and to resist the rough usage incident to transfer and 

 shipment. In addition to all these attributes of sti.rii.rth, the barrel 

 is the only package which is so easily handled, practically amounting 

 to a vehicle within itself, which can readily be rolled from place to 

 place without the employment of carriers or trucks. 



The Oak Price Situation. 



Plain oak is a favorite and large item of lumber handling by the 

 Chicago jobbing fraternity, and just now this part of the trade is in a 

 quandary as to how to continue the handling of the product and show 

 even a modicum of profit in the transaction. Ruling selling prices, to 

 the manufacturing and consuming trade generally in Chicago, on 

 plain white and red oak are approximately $42 for firsts and seconds; 

 $27 lor No. 1 common, and $15 for No. 3 common. At oak produc- 

 ing points, carrying a Chicago freight rate of from $7 to $S a thou- 

 sand, the prevailing a-! - for oak are about $30, $20 and 

 $10. Wl of buying and silling this lumber is taken 

 into account, oak handling on present cost and sale values shows only 

 about $3 a thousand profit on firsts and seconds, and a good $2 loss 

 on No. 1, and $3 on No. 2. Of course the jobber does not handle any 

 considerable quantity of No. 2 common, bin Jljng of simply 

 firsts and seconds of No. 1 only leaves him about even on sales. As 

 the present supply situation practically precludes the possibility of 

 aDy lowering of oak values at points of pro It el ion, it would seem that 



a higher range of values for plain oak must needs soon be established 

 in the Chicago market. 



Dope from the Dailies. 



The amount of misinformation concerning the lumber business 

 that is disseminated by the daily press is something marvelous. 

 This pabulum ranges from the humorous to the pathetic. 



The Chicago Chronicle quotes the Milwaukee Free Press in the 

 statement that in twenty-five years America will have no more 

 hardwoods. The article says: "Walnut has practically disappeared 

 from the face of the earth, commercially speaking, and oak, ash 

 and cherry will go lie same way in another quarter century." As 

 a matter of fact, the present annual output of walnut logs and 



lumber approximates 10, ,000 feet. This quantity being double 



amount needed for domestic use, fifty percent of it is sold 

 abroad. The article further states that there are -'many mills in 

 Michigan that use up fifty acre, ,,f timber each day," which state- 

 men' would be interesting if it were true. 



est sinners of any coterie of ne*vspapois in the country 

 in respect to promulgating misstatements of facts concerning the 

 lumber industry, are the daily papers of Memphis. Those news- 

 paper .haps down '.here do not confine their efforts to furnishing 

 guff tor their local press, but by some means succeed in getting 

 it transmitted through the associated press dispatches to all parts 

 of the country. A lumber newspaper editor has learned to shy at 

 any press clipping on lumber topics bearing a Memphis .late. 

 The lumbermen of that great hardwood-producing section would 

 do well to have a censor employed to edit lumber literatim that 

 ttes from their city. 



The Freeport, 111., Standard r ntly published an extraordinary 



article on the subject of black walnut, which it dipped from the 

 Roekford Republic. This article also tells about the scarcity of 

 walnut and that its value approximates mahogany. The gist of the 

 article, however, i- that one William l:..\ I. has secured three car- 

 loads of walnut in the vicinity of Kockford, of late, which will 

 be sawed into lumber .and sold at enormous prices, aud that Mr. 

 Boyle is likely to make a small fortune off them. 



A dispatch from Greenville, S. C, to the Columbia State is 

 authority for the statement that real mahogany is being cut from 

 rest of oaks in Glassy Mountain township, near the North Caro- 

 lina line. As a matter of fact, the only mahogany that grows 

 in the United States is an occasional sapling on the key- of southern 

 Florida. 



The Chicago Tribune vouchsafes the information that by a new 

 process soft woods can be made into hardwoods for all practical 

 purposes of the industry. The inventor is a Frenchman, and he is 

 far away. 



Even the lumber press is not exempt from ridiculous misinforma- 

 tion pertaining to the industry with which it is supposedly familiar. 



July Furniture Sales. 



An alleged conservative estimate of the amount of orders placed 

 at the July furniture sale at Grand Rapids, Mich., is $10,000,000. 

 This estimate includes not only the sales made at the exhibits, but 

 also by the forty or fifty local furniture plants who show their line of 

 goods in their own factories. The total number of exhibitors num- 

 bered approximately 250. 



If the foregoing estimate partakes in any wise of accuracy, and it 

 is presumed that it does, by analogy, it can be estimated that the 

 upwards of 400 exhibitors at the Chicago July shows sold fully 

 $20,000,000 worth of goods. Therefore, if orders for $30,000,000 

 worth of furniture were placed at Chicago and Grand Rapids during 

 July, it would indicate that the aggregate sales from all sources re- 

 ceived by the more than 1,500 wholesale manufacturers of furniture of 

 various sorts throughout the United States during last month runs 

 into a sum greatly in excess of any previous period of their history. 

 It is certain that the sales ha\ e been large and much in excess of the 

 volume of January business, and therefore it can be safely presaged 

 that the demand for furniture woods during the remainder of the 

 Beason will exceed that of any like period in the history of the trade. 



