January 20. li)lG 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



15 



lie got it along somo lines when he was in power; but, if the findings 

 of the national Chamber of Commerce committee are true, there 

 were some things in the "efficiency" line which escaped Roosevelt's 

 adniinistratiou as well as se\eral other administrations. 



Raisins and Lumber 



DKIED GRArE AND A PIECE OF A TREE may not have very 

 many characteristics in common, but one is a raisin and the other 

 is lumber, and both are made to sell, and if they cannot be sold at a 

 profit there is no good end to be reached in making them. Here be- 

 gins the common ground on which both stand. 



Practical!}- all the raisins produced in America are grown in 

 California. It is a big business confined to relatively small territor}-. 

 Raisin growers and lumbermen have had the same kind of trouble. 

 Both produced more than the market was disposed to take, and prices 

 were forced so low that profits threatened to disappear. 



The raisin growers have worked out their financial salvation, and 

 their experience might serve as a guide to lumbermen who are seek- 

 ing wider markets and better prices. The raisin men had a long 

 fight, many discouragements, and numerous backsets before they won 

 out. They met competition in currants (seedless raisins) from Greece 

 and raisins from Spain and Syria. These foreign articles forced 

 their way into the American markets, much as substitutes are now 

 taking business away from lumber, and the California raisin growers 

 could not sell for enough to pay expenses. They decided to put sell- 

 ing agents in the field. The "field," as they considered it, meant 

 that part of the United States lying east of the Rocky Mountains. 

 Six thousand vineyardists held meetings and discussed the situation 

 in all its unpleasant and unpromising ramifications. They scraped 

 together a little money and sent out a selling agent or two. They 

 selected those who had made the most speeches in their meetings, and 

 the most noise elsewhere, and sent them forth to sell raisins. They 

 went, saw, and returned, without selling many raisins or bringing 

 relief to the despondent growers. 



About that time a business man, M. Theo. Kearney, by name, an- 

 nounced that if the growers would put up money for a campaign, 

 he would sell their raisins at a profit which would find its way into the 

 pocket of each grower from the largest to the least. The first item in 

 his proposition was a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year for 

 himself. That was met by a storm of opposition and indignation. 

 They told him that they never had paid selling agents more than 

 fifty dollars a week, and they had sent out some of the best orators 

 of the Pacific Slope for even less than that. He advised them not to 

 become prematurely excited over this salary because if they hired 

 him, his salary would be only a beginning of what he would make 

 them dig up; "but," he added, "if you do it, I will sell next year's 

 crop for a million dollars more than you got this year. ' ' 



The raisin growers stormed, protested and denounced, and, in the 

 language of one of the leading vineyardists, ' ' we cursed Kearney 

 and he cursed back ' ' ; but as their business was in a deplorable fix, 

 they finally met his terms, gave him the money he demanded, and he 

 went to work. The first thing he did was to flood every postoflBce in 

 the United States with a little pamphlet, ' ' Recipes for Cooking Cali- 

 fornia Raisins. ' ' The booklets were the finest works of art that 

 printers' ink could produce. 



He worked on the theory that the raisin was a good thing, was 

 within reach of the people, but the people did not know about it. 

 He hit the mark the first shot. There were other things to do, but 

 he won the campaign with the little recipe book, by acquainting the 

 people with California raisins and explaining the numerous ways in 

 which they could be used. He more than redeemed his promise of 

 selling the crop at a million dollars advance. The victory was per- 

 manent. That was several years ago, and from that day to this the 

 raisin vineyardists have been the most prosperous fruit growers of the 

 United States. The campaign of advertising goes on, though Kearney 

 is not in it. He died suddenly while at sea on his way to Europe, 

 and received newspaper mention chiefly because he had on his person 

 at the time of his death one hundred thousand dollars, which is more 

 change than the ordinary traveler carries about with him. He had no 

 known relative, and in his will he left his vinevard, worth a million 



dollars, to the University of California to be used as an experiment 

 station in grape culture. 



Though a dried grape and a piece of a tree are different things, 

 possibly the experience of the grape people will encourage lumber- 

 men to persevere in their fight to place their product where it belongs. 

 Lumber is a good thing, and it is within reach of the people; but 

 many of them are not aware of the fact. The campaign for education 

 already organized by the lumber association ought to do for lumber 

 what Kearney's little recipe book did for the California raisin 

 business. 



The Flour Barrel's Story 



THE STORY OF THE FLOUR BARREL during the past twenty- 

 five years is the story of the campaign of substitutes against 

 wood along a certain line. Minneapolis is an important flour center 

 and figures representing the use of barrels there can be taken as an 

 indext to their use in the whole country, with the exception of the 

 Pacific coast. In 1890, which was twenty-five years ago, Minneapolis 

 flour barrel dealers sold 3,123,945 flour barrels, most of which were 

 for use in that district. At that time 44.7 per cent of the Minne- 

 apolis flour was shipped in wooden barrels. 



In 1914 in the same field the sale of flour barrels totaled 1,218,770, 

 or 39 per cent of the sales twenty-five years before. In the'lattter 

 year 6.8 per cent only of the Minneapolis flour went to market in 

 wooden barrels. During that period of twenty-five years the produc- 

 tion of flour more than doubled, but the actual use of barrels feU 

 off nearly two-thirds, and the pro rata number declined to one-sixth. 



In that particular line wood has lost heavily and substitutes have 

 gained in a corresponding degree. The substitutes in this instance 

 have been cotton and paper bags. There is still plenty of good wood 

 of which to make flour barrels. The decline does not point to scarcity 

 m barrel material. The wooden container has been losing because it 

 is not quite so cheap, at first cost, as the substitutes. It has lost also 

 for the further reason that many purchasers do not buy as much as a 

 barrel of flour at a time, and a bag of twenty-five or fifty pounds 

 appeals to the small buyer. 



That advantage for the bag must be admitted, but the bariel has 

 advantages which ought to appeal strongly. It is more sanitary. It 

 keeps the flour clean, while on the road from the mill to the consumer. 

 Impurities, picked up in box cars and warehouses, cannot pass through 

 the staves and contaminate the flour. That is more than can be 

 said of cotton and paper bags in which flour is hawked about the 

 country. The extra cleanliness of flour shipped in barrels is worth 

 much more than the few cents saved by purchasing it in bags. 



Oak and Southern Prosperity 



PROBABLY NO OTHER SECTION in the world is more closely 

 cemented with local patriotism than is that section of the United 

 States south of the Mason and Dixon line, and east of the great cattle 

 states. It is also probable that there are few other resources which 

 have given to such a large area a revenue comparable in general 

 distribution to the income which has been derived from the manufac- 

 ture and marketing of oak lumber from the southern states. Oak is 

 a tree which has always prevailed in merchantable form throughout 

 that territory and has given to these states a very considerable propor- 

 tion of their wealth. 



Thus it would seem that any efforts to broaden the range of con- 

 sumption of oak lumber and other products of the oak tree and to 

 bring greater money returns from the sale of such products in the 

 South would react directly to the benefit of the whole southland. The 

 question of appealing to local patriotism as well as to the business 

 sense of the southerners was raised by a prominent lumberman a short 

 time ago and certainly seems to offer an opportunity for sales work 

 of an exceptionally effective character. Oak manufacturers would 

 do well to make a special play to the South in the interests of a prod- 

 uct the increased sale of which would benefit everybody in that ter- 

 ritory. 



f Very often the man making the biggest row about cutting competi- 

 tion is first to start price cutting. 



