HARDWOOD RECORD 



27 



of you will agree with me that the United 

 States is what you might call a wooden house 

 building nation. Iu other words, a large per- 

 centage of the lumber manufactured iu our saw 

 mills goes into the construction of wooden 

 buildings or allied products. That house building 

 tendency is i" be held responsible for to.- fact 

 thai our lumber products today are largelj 

 boards and board products, lu other words, »■• 

 take the logs from the woods and the tegd,encj 

 is to manufacture ii'on.ls and laths, shingles and 

 things of that character. The tendency lias 



i n. furthermore, on the pari of each operator 



perhaps 1 ought not I" put ii so strong 

 inn the majority of operators put up a sawmill 

 to saw as many boards as they can with the 

 plant at their disposal. The aim is. by means "I 

 ili,. application of improved machinery tot- log- 

 ging operations, etc., to gel out the greatest out- 

 put. At the end of tin' day a man will rush 



iiii.. tl Bice and say: "Hurrah, ii has been 



our banner day/' because the-y have sawed more 

 lumber that day than ever before on any day. 



\\\ next topic is that our lumber is not as 

 good as it was; Ihai it is harder to get to the 

 mill; that we .aimed get quite the same quality 

 of boards that we used to get. What an- we 

 going in ib, about it; Our supplies are decreas- 

 ing. Is there anything that the manufacturers 

 can-do towards holding off the day that manj 

 tear in the near future when there will be a 

 greater scarcitj of supplies than ever before? 

 In a little talk I gave a lew weeks ago to some 

 hardw I manufacturers 1 referred to this ques- 

 tion under two terms, namely: specialization of 

 manufacture as distinguished from specialization 

 in sabs. All of you are aware of the fact that 

 if you take an oak tree as it stands in the woods 

 i.ilav and measure the cubical contents — I don't 

 mean the log scale, but the actual available wood 

 in that tree from the time it stands in the forest 

 until manufactured into a chair or a table or a 

 floor — a large percentage has gone to waste, 

 estimated at some 30 to 35 per cent, certainly a 

 large per cent is lost. How can we make better 

 timber out of it'.- That is the problem. Your 

 cutting should be from mature trees, keep 

 ing the voung ones standing for the future. The 

 In.-, should be kept down in the forests. I per- 

 sonally do not believe that in the majority of 

 .ases 'at the present time our manufacturing op- 

 erations are very profitable except for the very 

 largest manufacturers. 11 is certainly a subject 

 well worthy of the consideration of every man 

 ufacturer of hardwood lumber. 



My second topic is economical methods. I 

 said before the tendency seems to he to make 

 I be must lumber, irrespective of conditions. Let 

 us follow the path of the log from the woods 

 to the sawmill, until marketed. Trees are now 

 telle, I usually without reference to any effect 

 that the felling may have upon the log after it 

 -Hikes the ground. The average woodehopper 

 fells a tree because it happens to have a certain 

 leaning or because it is more convenient to fell 

 it in one direction, irrespective of whether it 

 will strike another tree or fall over a fallen 

 log. Thousands of feet of lumber are ruined 

 every year in hardwood and pine operations by 

 absolute inattention in logging operations l" any 

 kind of care, except in certain instances. I do 

 not want you to accuse me of making sugges- 

 tions that are highfaluting or theoretical. 1 

 am simply pointing out the channels through 

 which a great deal of loss takes place. Some- 

 limes there mav be no remedies for that kind of 

 operation, bu! In the majority of cases there is 

 a remedy. The felling of logs cannot be done 



according to any particular kind of scheme to 

 save waste, but you can save the thrashing 



around of the log in iho woods. No one is more 

 conscious than I am of the difficulty of handling 

 logs from the woods to the mill, but I have 

 seen thousands of rases which appeared to me 

 io he a useless and barbarous handling on the 

 part of Hie log operators, destroying a large 

 pari of the log by careless operation, the driving 

 in of bolts and spikes and hooks, mutilating the 

 log without any particular gain 



The next siep iii logging operations is at tin' 

 sawmill and here, il seems to me. most reform 

 can be effected. We will say we are sawing 

 boards so fast that as we stand by the band saw. 

 as we stand by the re saw. it is almost impos- 

 sible, even for a person who is an expert in the 

 mailer, to take in at one glance the quality 0) 



i he boards passing through. I have si 1 many 



an hour behind the saw table and tried to gain 

 information from the sawyer as to how be man 

 aged io determine the grades of the boards, but 

 1 was unable to do so. Now. is it possible to 

 decrease the speed of the outpul and accomplish 

 a realisation of the besl grades of boards'.' I 

 know one or two mills which are paying more 

 attention to that feature now than heretofore. 

 The decrease in the percentage of the cut and 

 the better quality of the lumber was surprising 

 even to themselves. 



Closely following that is the education of the 

 Sawyer in the grading rules of the lumber lie is 

 handling. The sawyer can make or unmake the 

 particular quality of the boards coming from the 

 sawmill, and while we have men in the mill 

 who are simply trained to pull up the saw 

 automatically, the man who pays attention to 

 the rules anil tries to adjust himself lo Hie situ- 



II W. MOSBY, HELENA. AUK.. DIRECTOR. 



LANG, CHICAGO, DIRE! Tl IK 



a I ion is of considerable value. The inability of 

 I be sawyer, owing to the speed of operating, to 

 judge fully the quality of the material he is 

 using is responsible to a large extent for the 

 present situation which may or may not be 

 Improved upon. At least, it is something worth 

 lliinking alioiil. following closely upon Ilia", 

 is the handling of the lumber after il leaves lb.- 

 sawmill, checking and the process of kiln drying 

 operations. In other words, the making of thai 

 particular lumber into the form which will be 

 acceptable to the purchaser. 1 refer very fee) 

 ingly to that particular phase, because I bale 

 very much to see what I consider valuable tim- 

 ber' ruthlessly mutilated by careless operating. 



1 have much Interest in the question asked 

 ibis morning as to whether any rule had been 

 drawn up for warped lumber. Take, for in 

 stance, red gum. I hate to see a timber that is 

 really very valuable and such a high grade 

 product slaughtered and put upon the market. 

 I say advisedly to you, gentlemen, you are re- 

 sponsible for giving it a name which it will 

 lake a great many years to overcome, simply 

 because of failure' to' pay attention to drying. 

 You mav say, "Red gum is hard to dry and we 

 don't know bow to do it." if that is the case, 

 unci out how to do it. Experiment with the 

 material. Some people can do it. I have seen 

 red gum boards. Iwo and three inch stock, irre 

 spective of climate and other conditions, which 

 has ,ome out good. You will remember the cabi- 

 neis that we had at the World's Fair. They 

 sioo.l out in the rain after the fire, and when 

 i h,v were sent to the cabinetmaker he did not 

 have anything to do to make the drawers come 

 out easily, and nothing to do but polish and 

 ad hist them. 



There was anolher thing I would like to im- 



HAMEI. WERTZ, EVANSVILLE, 1NI>.. DIREC- 

 TOR. 



press upon you, a thing that is bound i" appeal 

 to the consumer — to be proud of the inherent 

 qualities of the wood you manufacture. It is 

 your bonnden duty to qualify yourselves as to 

 values. Bring the attention of the consumer to 

 the specific quality of the wood, and when you 

 have done i hat. don't overcapitalize il. State 



the case fairly. Give the w I a proper chance 



and I am sure that none of you will ever be dis 

 appointed on account of having shouted for the 

 particular pic, duct you deal in. 



1 have been going out among the architects 

 .somewhat during the last few years and have 

 tried to find out their reasons for ado], Hug cer- 

 tain kinds of wood in building houses, and I 

 have been surprised at their ignorance as to 

 many of the qualities of hardwood lumber. The 

 hardwood industry more than any other is ceas- 

 ing to be distinctly a board manufacturing in- 

 dustry. There is a demand for special manufac- 

 i ni e such as stringers and railroad ties in cer- 

 tain woods. You are dealing with materials 

 which arc lit for special manufacture, and I 

 would like to put forth the idea 'that perhaps 

 some of you now and then may find it advisable 

 lu consider (he possibility of utilizing special 

 logs iu your mills. Your president will agree 

 with me," I think, that when, we regard the situ- 

 ation in Europe, no manufacturer of chairs or 

 of furniture would dream of going to a lumber 

 yard and buying twenty-five boards. He goes out 

 into the woods or into the logging yard, selects 

 bis particular logs because' of the grain and free- 

 dom from knots as far as can be told from the 

 c. inside : he makes a contract with the sawmill 

 man to saw that particular log, but he does not 

 trim il or do anything to it as far as clearing it 

 is concerned. He sells the whole log and it is 

 pul on a car and shipped to the spot where the 

 manufacturer has his establishment, and he gets 

 the whole thing. He not only reduces the waste, 

 hut pays a higher price for the log instead of 

 doing what we do today Certain oak logs are 

 better fitted for making spokes, etc.. and for 

 .hairs; certain hickory logs for railroad ties. 

 Certain manufacturers may not realize that 

 idea I don't want you to think 1 am throwing 

 ibis out as a thing you should begin tomorrow. 

 11 is an idea as to what line of work we may 

 follow in the future, how it may develop so we 

 can use what is in the log. because after all 

 what we want is the most money for the mate 

 rial we have, aud if you can get more by taking 

 a selected log and using that, working ip a sen- 

 timent for that kind of wood. I don't sec- why 

 you should not get fancy prices lor it. 



As to specialization I will not say much be- 

 cause it is t jxtensive a subject — the desire 



bilitv of showing the special fitness of particular 

 woods. Take red gum, for instance. I always 

 feel that an object lesson is worth more than 

 any talk. I have been going around for some 

 data to present to the long distance telephone 



pany on the fitness of certain hardwood for 



manufacturing cross arms, for conduits and 

 things of that character. They wanted to know 

 about red gum. We went down the Mississippi 

 valley and si ruck by accident in one town in 

 Arkansas an electric light plant which had been 

 furnished red gum for cross arms ten tears ago. 

 We had beard about red gum and we had been 

 told. "That is no good: it will warp all to 

 pieces." I brought with me a section of the 

 cross arm that I cut from au electric light pole 

 a few weeks ago. I want yon to examine thaf- 

 and there are hundreds of them in that condi- 



