HARDWOOD RECORD 



June 23. 1918 



of the Luhring Lumber Company and Neal Sauer of the Cottage Building 

 Company of this city visited Washington, D. C, where they consulted 

 officials of the war department in regard to getting war contracts for 

 planing mills and other industries in this city. They were sent on this 

 mission by the Evansville Chamber of Commerce. Manufacturers here are 

 now very optimistic over the prospects of landing a few nice war contracts 

 for local plants. 



The Rockport Novelty Works at Rockport, Ind., a few miles east of 

 Evansville. is the name of a new industry that has just started operation. 

 O. R. Matthew, formerly engaged in another business in Rockport, is the 

 manager of the new company that manufactures insular pins and brackets 

 for telephone poles. They are made from locust timber. Mr. Matthew 

 has enough orders booked to keep the plant in full operations for several 

 months. 



D. B. MacLaren of the D. B. MacLaren Lumber Company has returned 

 from a business trip to Indianapolis and the central part of the state, 

 where he reports trade conditions coming along all right. 



Reports from several points in southern Indiana say that a good many 

 farmers have been victimized by strangers who have represented them- 

 selves as agents for the United States government and who have purchased 

 walnut trees from the farmers at extremely low prices. The farmers have 

 been warned against selling their trees to strangers unless they first show 

 their credentials. Many walnut trees in this section are being shut down. 

 Boy scouts in Evansville are assisting the government in its campaign to 

 buy up walnut trees by going through the country and taking the number 

 and sizes of the walnut trees. A large tract of walnut timber standing 

 near Danville, 111., was sold a few days ago and the logs will be shipped 

 to St. Louis, where they will be used in the manufacture of blades for 

 aeroplanes for the government. S. H. Blood, well-known lumber manu- 

 facturer at Grayville, 111., will cut up a large number of walnut trees that 

 are standing on his farm in the Wabash river bottoms. 



George O. Worland, secretary and treasurer of the Evansville Veneer 

 Company, has recovered from his recent attack of illness and is again at 

 his office. 



.< MEMPHIS >- 



The Korn-Conkling Lumber Company. Cincinnati, and the Triangle Lum- 

 ber Company, owned by the same interests, have opened offices in the 

 Bank of Commerce and Trust building here for the purchase and sale of 

 southern hardwoods. The output of the plant of the last nanjed company 

 at Percy, Miss., will be handled through these offices. Frank A. Conkling, 

 Cincinnati, vice-president of these companies, and W. C. Palmer, secretary- 

 treasurer, have charge of these offices and will make their home in 

 Memphis. 



It is announced that the Black River Lumber Company of Jeffris, La., 

 has acquired all of the holdings of the Concordia Land & Timber Com- 

 pany, including a big band mill, 43,000 acres of timber lands and a town 

 site, with eighty houses thereon, seven miles from Natchez, Miss. It is 

 also announced, in the same connection that the Rathborne, Hair & Ridge- 

 way Company of Chicago, is installing a box and veneer plant on this 

 town site which will be ready for operation within less than sixty days. 

 Large quantities of timber are being cut from this property and will be 

 used in the manufacture of finished wooden containers, both sawn and 

 veneered. 



R. S. Maddox, forester of the Tennessee Geological Survey, is out in an 

 official statement urging that everything possible be done to supply the 

 needs of the government and government contractors in black walnut. 

 He asserts that these needs are greater today than ever before and sug- 

 gests that, where one person is not able to ship in car load lots, he Join 

 with two or three others in making up the necessary quantities. He 

 describes this as a "war service" and a "service for civilization" because 

 of the necessity of black walnut for the manufacture of gun stocks and 

 airplane propellers. He points out that the government will pay good 

 prices for its requirements and that the marketing of black walnut ought 

 to prove very profitable. 



Information received by L. K. Salsbury, president of the Memphis 

 Chamber of Commerce, indicates that the large delegation of business men 

 who went from Memphis, from Vicksburg and Greeneville, Miss., from 

 Caruthersville and St. Louis, Mo., and from other river cities, are meet- 

 ing with considerable encouragement in their effort to impress upon 

 Director-General McAdoo the necessity of establishing a barge line on the 

 Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans for the handling of heavy 

 freight. The unusual interest manifested by business men from river 

 cities in this proposition arises from the belief that the establishment of 

 such a barge line is absolutely essential it there are not to be far worse 

 transportation conditions this fall and winter than during the past one. 



There is quite a considerable export business in tight cooperage stock. 

 One firm here, which produces tight heading and staves and ships these 

 in their knocked-down form, says that it is exporting quite liberal quanti- 

 ties to South America, to Japan and China and to foreign allied govern- 

 ments. The latter are in every instance providing the necessary ocean 

 shipping space for cargoes of knocked-down barrels, since these are being 

 used for the handling of materials necessary to the winning of the war. 

 .Tapau and China have fair cargo space while considerable difficulty is 

 encountered in finding ship room to South American ports. 



Demiind for wooden containers, whether barrels or boxes, is the largest 

 ever experienced by interests engaged in the production thereof in this 



part of the country. "There is no trouble whatever on the score of de- 

 mand. We can sell all we can make and we can dispose of our output 

 at the best prices ever received. It is altogether a question of service. 

 Production is the real problem and this is seriously complicated by the 

 shortage of labor and the rapidly increasing cost thereof." That is the 

 situation as outlined by a number of slack and tight cooperage manufac- 

 turers as well as by box interests operating in Memphis and the sur- 

 rounding territory. Already many engaged in the production of these 

 wooden containers are forced to operate only partially because of the 

 insuperable obstacle presented by the labor shortage. 



O. M. Krebs, chairman of the cost committee of the American Hard- 

 wood Manufacturers' Association ; L. P. DuBose, Lamb-Fish Lumber Com- 

 pany, Charleston, Miss., a member of the same committee, and John M. 

 Pritchard, secretary-manager of the association, attended the cost con- 

 ference held at Cincinnati some days ago when steps were taken to make 

 a survey of the entire hardwood industry with a view to determining cost 

 of production. Representatives of the cost committee of the Hardwood 

 Manufacturers' Association participated in this conference and the two 

 bodies will co-operate closely in. working out this cost problem. 



The labor situation south continues to become more acute and wages 

 are having to be boosted every little while if an industry does not want 

 to lose its supply of men. 



Much difficulty is encountered in securing enough help to man hard- 

 wood mills and woodworking enterprises in this city and throughout the 

 valley territory and the shortage of labor is seriously affecting the quan- 

 tity of logs being prepared for delivery to mills in this section. 



One of the big firms in North Mississippi, which has been having no 

 difficulty whatever in getting out logs or in having them transported, 

 because it operates its own railroad equipment, said today that it is con- 

 fronted with a serious shortage of logs because it is unable to get enough 

 men to cut and prepare the timber for shipment. 



Other firms are having similar difficulty and a pronounced shortage of 

 logs for the late summer and early fall is indicated unless there is a 

 change in conditions. And the only change on the cards, apparently, is 

 for the worse, because there are thousands of men being drafted from 

 every county in the whole southern hardwood producing area.]^ 



The Valley Log Loading Company suggests that only moderate quanti- 

 ties of logs are being placed on the rights of way of the railroads on 

 which it operates and it furthermore reports that virtually all the old 

 logs on the rights of way of these roads have been moved. 



Women are being employed in increasing numbers in lumber yards and 

 in woodworking plants where the work is comparatively light. They are 

 unable to cut and prepare timber for shipment, however, and there ap- 

 pears no immediate relief from present acute shortage of labor so far as 

 work in the woods is concerned. 



=-< LOUISVILLE >= 



The Louisville Hardwood Club at a meeting on Tuesday, June 18, at the 

 Devil's Kitchen, a road house, went on record as being in favor of the 

 general use of trade acceptances in the lumber business. The matter 

 was discussed at length, this discussion coming atop of several discus- 

 sions last spring on the same subject. It was explained that customers 

 when they come to understand trade acceptances will realize that they 

 are a great form of credit, and that they will approve of them as much 

 as the manufacturer and jobber. On a resolution brought in by A. E. 

 Norman, Jr., the club went on record as heartily approving of the use of 

 trade acceptances wherever practicable, all members agreeing to make 

 their sales in this way wherever possible, as it is merely a matter of 

 when the trade will become educated to their use, before it becomes gen- 

 erally used. 



At this meeting of the club arrangements were made whereby every 

 member will be represented at the Chicago convention of the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association, each member to have at least one repre- 

 sentative there, the Louisville delegation for once to be in evidence. 



Discussion of General Order, No. 28, was heard, relative to the recent 

 modifications of the $15 car minimum proposition, and also of the com- 

 bination rate plan, which will mean a big thing to Louisville as a re- 

 handling center, as compared with the original announcement. Attention 

 was also called to General Order 25, holding up until August 1, the pro- 

 posed regulation under which freight charges will have to be paid within 

 forty-eight hours of receipt of car. 



About fifty prominent industrial concerns of Louisville, including a 

 number of lumber concerns, have agreed to each give $20 a month to a 

 Board of Trade fund which will enable the Louisville Industrial Founda- 

 tion to maintain a permanent war order bureau in Washington to look 

 after Louisville's industrial interests. 



The W. P. Brown & Sons Lumber Company is one of about forty Louis- 

 ville industrial concerns co-operating in a general campaign through the 

 newspapers, in advertising and publicity form, to show workers that wages 

 in Louisville are as high as elsewhere, and that constant shifting reduces 

 production for the mniinl.iclnr. r, and at the same time fails to benefit the 

 employe. For some tim.' p;i-,t lui'n have been switching jobs so fast that 

 it is hard t.i keep ac(|n:iiniial -vvilh the force. 



■' 'I 'h>i.., Ky.. legal iiroceedings have been started to wind up the 



i>i . il.'.irge W. Stout, a cooperage manufacturer, the heirs 



ila h ilip loss of the whisky barrel business the plant is not 



(i|. I ;.l\. .lud asking that it be sold and the estate settled. 



AU Thr«e of Us Will Be Benefited if You Mention HARDWOOD RECORD 



