38 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



May 10, 191S 



and March. It has been due, too, partly to the unwillingness of 

 owners of timber lands to cut their logs and prepare them for ship- 

 ment when they had so many on rights of way of railroads that 

 could not be moved. The shortage of labor, too, has been a serious 

 handicap and is still so. There will doubtless be increased effort 

 to get logs ready for shipment to the mills, but it is a question 

 whether or not those desiring to cut timber will be able to get 

 enough labor for this purpose. The draft law is operating seriously 

 against the labor supply in the valley territory, while demand for 

 labor for farm work is extremely heavy. The highest wages ever 

 known are being paid. Members of the Southern Logging Asso- 

 ciation, in session at Memphis April 25, admitted that labor con- 

 ditions were so serious that they found it almost impossible to 

 make headway with their work. They are using labor saving 

 devices of every kind and are, where possible, employing women. 

 Hardwood interests admit that there is increasing difficulty in 

 securing help enough to man their plants and to take care of the 

 cutting and hauling of timber. 



It is therefore regarded as probable that the trade is passing by 

 easy stages from an excess of logs which could not be moved, 

 because of transportation difficulties, to an actual shortage in the 

 quantity of logs awaiting movement by the railroads. The quan- 

 tity of new logs cut and prepared for delivery is sharply below the 

 corresponding date last year. 



Railroad Car Building in Illinois 



Announcevnent has been made that the enormous orders for rail- 

 road cars, about to be placed with manufacturers, will come to 

 Illinois to a very large extent. It has been stated that 50,000 

 freight cars will be that state's allotment of the orders, and that 

 40,000 of the number will be built in Chicago at a cost of $120,- 

 000,000, or at the average of $3,000 a car. 



No information has yet been given out as to the quantity and 

 kinds of wood to be used in building these cars, but much steel and 

 much wood will be needed. Illinois has long been the leading state 

 in car building, and the statistics for the industry during the period 

 before the war, shows that the annual consumption of wood in the 

 state for railroad cars of all kinds totaled 407,333,000 feet, and 

 that the sum of $12,400,693 was paid by the manufacturers for this 

 lumber. Thirty-three kinds of wood were used, most of which was 

 southern yellow pine, while 57,000,000 feet of white oak, and 12,- 

 000,000 of red oak were reported. Other hardwoods listed in large 

 amounts were yellow poplar, ash, cotton wood, maple, and birch. 



Though the manufacture of cars has been largely carried on in 

 Illinois, most of the wood has been drawn from other regions, and 

 the same process will likely be repeated in carrying out the new 

 building program. The Illinois car builders went to other states 

 and regions for lumber, in amounts listed as follows: 



Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 7.7 per cent; Indiana, Ohio 

 and West Virginia, 5,3; Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee, 8.5; 

 Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, 2.3.4; Alabama, Georgia and Mis- 

 sissippi, 20.3; Pacific coast, 7.1. It thus apijears that the car mak- 

 ers of Illinois draw for timber supplies upon the principal forest 

 regions of the country. The average price paid at the factories for 

 lumber was $30.44 at the time these statistics were compiled. 



The new orders which have been announced will be much larger 

 than those filled during years of normal business, and they should 

 create a demand for larger bills of car stock. 



The fact that Chicago offered great quantities of raw materials, 

 available plants, a surplus of labor, and the best housing conditions 

 of any city of the country is said to have been the prime factor 

 which led to the letting of the government car building contracts 

 to local factories. Among the concerns which will build cars for 

 the government are the Pressed Steel Pullman, Haskell & Barker, 

 Standard Car and the Joyce car companies. The American Car 

 and Foundry Company also will build cars in Chicago and at St. 

 Charles. 



F. E. Sullivan, executive secretary of the Cooperative league of 

 Chicago building trades and industries, wrote to Mr. McAdoo on 



April 3, outlining the war work facilities of Chicago as indicated 

 from carefully compiled data which had been gathered by the or- 

 ganization. 



Labor and housing facilities are as good in Chicago as in any 

 part of the country. 



It is said that the governjient will have supervision or control 

 as to prices of the materials required in construction. 



Tlie compensation of the builders will be approximately 5 per 

 cent on the cost, as estimated on the minimum bid. 



The five types of cars represent the standard forms of freight 

 cars adopted by the Railroad Administration. These standards 

 are the result of the labors of a committee of experts who for 

 weeks past have been working upon the problem. 



The adoption of these standard types, it is believed, will eventually 

 substitute a few scientifically worked-out designs for the numerous 

 miscellaneous varieties of cars, representing probably more than a 

 thousand different old styles and specifications now in use, the 

 accumulations of the past. 



Dogwood and Persimmon 



We all know in a general sort of way that both dogwood and 

 persimmon are made use of, that they enter into the making of 

 shuttle blocks, golf sticks and a few other things, but even the 

 average lumberman has but a vague idea of the exact quantity of 

 these woods used annually or for just what they are used. More- 

 over many a hardwood lumberman has some dogwood and some 

 persimmon in his stumpage which he knows is worth something, 

 but seldom taken the trouble to investigate and find out what to 

 make of it or how much he might get for it. The time is here when 

 owners of stumpage should bring out the dogwood and persimmon 

 along with other merchantable timber and seek a market for it, 

 not only to realize upon its value, but also to help supply the needs 

 of those who rcpiir.' tliis particular class of wood. 



A little niorr .1. liiijtr liu'lit than we have had heretofore is shed 

 upon the use of llusi' two woods by a special bulletin of the Forest 

 Service recently issued. It shows the annual cut and the principal 

 uses of these woods as follows: 



because the persimmon grows to larger size and should yield more 

 timber. Moreover, the dogwood is used for more purposes than 

 persimmon. Except for two or three items the bulk of the persim- 

 mon, as with the dogwood, enters into the making of shuttles. 



Persimmon enters athletic goods quite extensively, and it is the 

 persimmon which is used more than dogwood in golf stick work. 

 Incidentally it should be mentioned that persimmon enters some into 

 the making of parquetry flooring and is a sort of substitute gener- 

 ally for ebony. It is the American ebony, having many of the 

 characteristics of what we know as ebony, except that it is lacking 

 in the deep color. 



regio 



Wooden Shoes in War 



: in tlie trenches in northern Franco, and probably in other 

 use enormous numbers of wooden shoes. They are not 



marching, but about camp and in the trenches the soldiers 

 prefer thorn to leather shoes. They are warmer and dryer. .\s long 

 as water or snow does not come in at the top, the soldier's feet are 

 dry and warm in the wooden shoes. Dampness never soaks through. 

 One pair of such shoes costs ony one-fourth as much as leather, and 

 It will wear from five to ten times as long. Such shoes are mad* 

 of alder, lottonwood. birch, and maple. Alder Is preferred before all 

 other woods. It Is light, does not check, and is impervious to water. 



