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Meeting the Consumers^ ISieeds 



Editor's Note 



The following paper was read by W. W. Brown, of 

 Wis., Iietorc the Northern Hemlock and Hardwood Manu 

 uary 27. 



I think you will all agree with me that the tendency these days is 

 for the manufacturer to take his lumber direct to the consumer where- 

 ever it is both economical and practical. This is true not only with 

 the lumber but with many another business, and where it is economical 

 and i)ractical, is bound to produce good results, i)roviding the two 

 parties can get together on a standard basis and deal honestly and 

 intelligently with each other. 



In order to accomplish this, each must know something of the other 

 fellow's business. The lumberman must know the needs of the dif- 

 ferent manufacturers in order that he may cut his lumber to suit the 

 market. The manufacturer should know something about the lumber 

 business to be able to deal intelligently with the proposition, because 

 it is not only a lumber proposition up to the time the manufacturer 

 receives it, but it is a lumber proposition with the manufacturer on 

 through his dry kilns, cutting department, idaning liepartment and 

 gluing department \i\< to the 'time the various parts are ready to be 

 assembled into the manufactured article, and then after it gets to 

 the finishing room, it is more or less a lumber proposition in the way 

 the different kinds of wood take the finish and the difference in the 

 texture of the same kind of wood in taking the finish. 



For example: take a car of quartered white oak that is composed of 

 lumber sawed from logs gathered together from ilifferent sections of 

 the country — some cut from high land where the trees are more ex- 

 posed and become hard and tough, and some from the <lenser timber 

 of the low-lands where it grows larger and is of a softer quality ; cut 

 it up into the right dimension — say in a lot of fifty cabinets, and ac- 

 cording to our experience the cabinet maker will be able to produce 

 only twenty-five to thirty cabinets out of fifty that are matched up 

 for color and that will fini.sh evenly. The other twenty to twenty-five 

 cabinets, having from twelve to twenty drawer fronts, will look like 

 Joseph's coat of many colors no matter how careful the finisher may 

 be, because of the different texture and hardness of the lumber. 



We have found that by buying quartered oak from one tract of 

 timber where there isn't any blue wagon makers' or highland oak 

 mixed in, we reduce the number of cheap cabinets from twenty to 

 twenty-five out of fifty to five or six out of fifty. The same trouble 

 was experienced in mahogany. This trouble is done away with, how- 

 ever, by buying from a company that gets its logs direct out of one 

 district or tract of timber; instead of from companies that have an 

 assortment of logs ilerived from several districts along the African 

 coast. 



The manipulation of grades, except where there is an agreement 

 or understanding between the lumberman and manufacturer, has 

 caused considerable trouble and is a practice which I think ought to 

 be eliminated. Neither side is wholly to blame. The manufacturer 

 on the one hand, who insists on a cheap grade and won't pay the 

 market value for the full product of the grade he wants, is much to 

 blame, for the lumberman in order to sell him lumber must manipulate 

 a grade for that particular price and give the fellow a cheap grade 

 in quality as well as in price. In the end the manufacturer will find 

 that he has been paying a good price for what he is getting, especi- 

 ally if the lumberman is a little unscrupulous and carries his manipu- 

 lation to Such an extent that it more than offsets the difference in 

 price. On the other hand, there are lumbermen who seem to be 

 • looking for the fellow who doesn 't understand lumber and is an easy 

 prey to manipulation whether or not he pays the full market price for 

 the lumber. 



Most of the progressive lumbermen today express a desire to sell 

 their lumber on a straight grade basis and demand a fair price, and 

 it seems to me that this is the only way. The manufacturer would be 

 ahead in dealing this way and he can and ought to help in many dif- 

 ferent ways. First, by learning something about the lumber that he 

 can test the different grades in his factory and determine what is the 



—26— 



the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, of Two Rivers, 

 facturers' Association in session at Milwaukee. Jan- 

 most economical for his use. Then he knows exactly what he wants 

 and can give this information to the lumberman that he in turn may 

 manufacture his lumber to suit that trade. Some manufacturers 

 think they are giving away cherished secrets to take the lumberman 

 into their confidence and tell him how they cut up the timber and 

 what use is made of it. It strikes me that that is rather a foolish 

 attitude to take, for the more a lumberman knows about how the 

 lumber is cut up and what it is used for, the better can he serve 

 the interests of the manufacturer. 



To know which grade or combination of grades in the different 

 kinds and thicknesses of lumber we should buy in our plant at Two 

 Rivers, we conducted a few tests, by testing one grade against 

 another or against a combination of grades. The first was in the 

 4/4 birch, which is cut into lengths from 11" to 4', used in the manu- 

 facture of printers' goods. In this stock we tested Xo. 1 common. 

 No. 2 common, and No. 3 to find out the most economical grade to 

 use. We ma<le several tests of each grade and the result was that 

 the clear product derived from the No. 1 common, figuring it at 

 $26.00 per thousand, cost about .'fyi.OO per thousand, figuring the 

 waste and labor in cutting and handling. The No. 2 conmion, figuring 

 the lumber at $18.00 per thousand, cost about $24.50, and the No. 3 

 common at $16.00 per thousand cost $32.00. You can see by these 

 tests that the 4/4 No. 2 birch works up at a saving of $6.50 per thou- 

 sand over the No. 1 common and $7.50 per thousand over the good 

 No. 3 common. These tests prove that where the No. 2 grade is 

 graded on a clear cutting basis and your cuttings are from one foot 

 to four feet, that it is the most economical grade to use. 



The next test was in 5/4 basswood. This stock we cut up into cuts 

 from 4' to 8' lengths for engraving boards and print boards. These 

 must be clear white, both faces, not even a brown or black streak 

 the size of a lead pencil being allowed, and they must be free from 

 all crossing marks. We have been buying 5/4 winter sawed bass- 

 wood firsts and seconds, but most of it was sawed in the summer, and 

 were getting the No. 1 and better the full product of the grades both 

 brown and white in color, paying a good jirice for a first and second 

 grade. Some lumberman had tried to make us believe that if bass- 

 wood were sawn in the winter it was white. The consequence was that 

 only about one-half of the product worked into the article for which 

 it was intended and one-half of the stock had to be used where a 

 good No. 2 and 3 grade was good enough. The loss in working off 

 the half of the 5/4 was about $20.00 per thousand. That is quite 

 an item where you use from 100,000 to 150,000. We now buy a No. 1 

 common and better grade of white basswood and make a saving of 

 several dollars per thousand, although we have to pay a little more, 

 and buy a No. 2 and No. 3 common grade to take the place of what 

 was culled out of the No. 1 and better mixed colored stock. The 

 same was true with the 6/4 basswood, only we used up the waste 

 from that at a much less loss. 



In the 5/4 white maple the test was similar to that of 5/4 bass- 

 wood, but the loss was not so great, effecting about a $10 loss on about 

 one-half of from 100,000 to 125.000 per year. 



These are only a few of the many instances already tested out. In 

 fact, we have only begun to get at the bottom of the matter. I have 

 a number of other tests which I am now working on and expect to get 

 equally as good results as in some of the tests mentioned. 



The economic use of lumber is a study that every consumer ought 

 to take up, for it not only means a saving in dollars in the coat 

 of his material for the present year, but will help to prolong the tim- 

 ber cut of the country, thereby keeping i>rices within a reasonable 

 limit for years to come. There is considerable work being done in 

 conserving the timber of the forests and it is right there should be, 

 for if there is any natural resource in this country that has been 

 abused and wasted, it is timber. But what is the use of conserving 



