14 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



The Cover Picture 



THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTMAS in this issue's cover picture 

 are not so apparent as to cut out all need of the imagination. It 

 is an unusual Christmas scene which has no human being in sight, 

 and no sign of human activities, other than an old, rude road with a 

 wagon track, and without any means of telling whether the wagon 

 was going or coming. The snow on the ground fell some time ago. 

 It does not require much of a woodsman to cipher that out. The 

 snow lies too flat to be newly fallen. Weeds do not rise clean above 

 fresh snow; and another evidence that the snow has been down for 

 some time is apparent in the fact that the trees have none on their 

 small branches, though the upper sides of large limbs bear thin layers, 

 which the wind has not been strong enough to blow off. 



A winter forest is usually looked upon as cheerless, monotonous, 

 and uninteresting; but it is so only for those who lack discernment, 

 and who fail to see the interesting phenomena. In some respects an 

 old snow in the woods is more interesting than a new. It loses its 

 pure whiteness, not because the snow itself is any less white, but for 

 the reason that the surface becomes 

 strewn with waste matter from 

 trees and weeds. One is apt to 

 underestimate the amount of such 

 waste until he has noticed it on 

 the snow. The outer layer of bark 

 is constantly disintegrating and 

 falling as fine particles. This bark 

 dust is invisible when it drops on 

 the bare ground or on dead leaves; 

 yet it is considerable. Some trees, 

 like hickory, paper birch, and syc 

 amore, shed their bark in large 

 flakes; but most others get rid of 

 it particle by particle, year in and 

 year out. Every vear the tree adds 

 a new bark layer next to the wood, 

 and this compensates for the loss 

 of the outer portion. 



Waste comes from buds and 

 fruit, as well as bark, and the 

 snow as it falls catches it. Under 

 birches, sycamores, alders, hem- 

 locks, and several other kinds of 

 trees, so much waste showers down 

 from the outer scales of buds and 

 from cones and other seed cases, 

 that a single day of dry wind 

 through the bare branches often 

 suffices to cover the snow with 

 brown dust and larger particles. 



Birds skirmishing among yie branches for seeds and buds often 

 facilitate the showers of waste, while mice, issuing from their bur- 

 rows beneath the snow, eagerly pick up such seeds as birds fail to find. 



The dark color of the snow in the cover jiicture is quite noticeable. 

 The tangle of bare branches overhead accounts for it. It is a safe 

 guess that many a feathered or furred creature is picking a Christ- 

 mas dinner from the branches above or from the hard surface of 

 the snow beneath, though the camera failed to catch thenr in the act. 

 It is thus apparent that a merry Christmas is quite possible in deep 

 forests, though no human being is present. About Christmas begins 

 the season when the pheasant haunts the sumac thicket, the snowbird 

 seeks the cones on the alder, the quail, retreating from the snowy 

 grain fields, attacks the birch buds, and various and sundry winged 

 residents make inroads on the hemlock and pine seeds yet remaining 

 in the burrs. 



A Portentous Gathering 



QN THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, there met at the Hotel La 

 ^-^ >^nl1e, Chicago, in the neighborhood of sixty men prominently 

 'Anu .otivc'ly engaged in lumbering, or connected directly with the 

 lumlu . ' ■ -- There were included in this gathering manufac- 



turers, association secretaries, yard wholesalers and city and country 

 retailers. The purpose of the meeting was to crystallize the rather 

 scattered and unconcentrated thought of the trade at large upon the 

 question of successfully meeting the issue created by the ever increas- 

 ing utilization of substitutes for wood. 



The proceedings of this meeting are fully recorded in another part 

 of this issue, but Hardwood Record cannot refrain from stating 

 that this was without doubt one of the most portentous gatherings 

 of men prominently connected with the lumber industry, if not the 

 most portentous, which ever took place. 



The meeting had two possibilities. There existed before it took 

 place the possibility that those attending would come with lukewarm 

 feelings on the subject and without a keen appreciation and realiza- 

 ti(m of just what the lumber trade is up against. Had they come 

 in that frame of mind the meeting would unquestionably have re- 

 sulted in nothing more than has resulted from the many talks and 

 agitations on the same question heretofore. It was fortunate indeed 

 that those attending were representatives of aU groups of the 



industry affected. It was particu- 



A SHOUT CHRISTMAS SESMON 



The preachers of good mil as a Christmas motto do 

 not preach the whole truth, though an essential pari 

 of it. 



Good will alone is passive; it accomplishes no results 

 unless backed by something more positive and aggres- 

 sive. 



Good. will simply opens the way for good work, and it 

 is the- good work tliat counts in human affairs. 



Spiritual advice may appeal to disembodied spirits; 

 but so long as body and spirit are united on this earthly 

 sphere, the best advice is that which appeals to hu- 

 manity rather than to angels. 



The man who does something good is better than the 

 man who contents himself with saying something good. 



The man ulio eases his conscience by feeling for the 

 hungry in the bottom of his heart, is not so good ns thi 

 moil who feels in his pocket. 



Christmas should not be made the annual clearing 

 house for the conscience, where a moment of charity is 

 expected to atone for a year of neglect. 



Good intentions are like good money: they must be 

 put in circulation before they amount to anything worth 

 while. 



Some very pious Christians forget that tliere are 

 emergencies which call for ca.ih rather than for prayer. 



A load of coal for a freezing family in zero weather 

 is worth more in that particular case ihaii all the preach- 

 ivii shice .4d<im. 



larly fortunate that the attendance 

 was not so ponderous that thorough 

 discussion and action could not be 

 taken. As a result of the serious- 

 mindedness of those men who made 

 up the gathering, of the singleness 

 of purpose and determination to 

 actually accomplish something, the 

 prime object was realized. That 

 is, a real, concrete crystallization of 

 ideas and a definite and practical 

 plan for working out the issue was 

 the result of the day's session. 



There surely was no man who 

 attended the session, and there 

 probably never was a meeting of 

 lumbermen the proceedings of 

 which were followed with such 

 earnest application, who left with- 

 out a firm resolve to see the issue 

 through to the end. 



Thus this gathering accomplished 

 something which no large gather- 

 ing of lumbermen could possibly 

 have accomplished. It started a 

 definite issue along definite lines, 

 and it remains now for the trade 

 as a whole and the mass meeting 

 which will take place on February 

 24-25 at Chicago, to back the effort 

 of these men who have undertsiken the responsibility of putting the 

 third largest industry of the country on a modern, commercial basis 

 and to pledge their support morally and financially without quali- 

 fication or restriction. That mass meeting should be the objective 

 of every one financially interested in or dependent upon the lumber 

 industry in its many branches. This movement has been launched 

 along simple lines which, with the co-operation of the trade at large, 

 will work out to the satisfaction of everybody. It is up to the trade 

 now to get into their heads that this is a real issue and must be met, 

 and that it is the opportunity and the one Opportunity of meeting 

 it squarely and effectively. 



A Practical Way of Differentiating Between 

 Red and White Oak 



A GREAT DEAL HAS BEEN WRITTEN regarding the differ- 

 ences between oaks coming respectively in the red and white oak 

 groups, and in fact this has always been a question open to a great 

 deal of discussion both among practical men and among technically 

 trained foresters. Of course, the average lumberman who handles 

 hardwoods is competent to tell the difference between ordinary red 

 oak and ordinary white oak, but there are certain species which are 



