14. 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Thus it is that the salesman must needs eater to a great variety of 

 tastes and requirements. It is no wonder then that there is very little 

 doing in the way of uniform inspection when lumber reaches the 

 ultimate consumers of hardwoods. The general run of this trade 

 does not seem interested in the uniform grade proposition. On the con- 

 trary their interest lies in securingthelowest-prieedshipmentthatwi.il 

 fairly meet their requirements. These "price buyers," as they are 

 called, have rendered it almost impossible up to this date to seeure and 

 maintain uniform inspection. The very system under which hard- 

 woods are sold leaves the gate wide open for the unscrupulous in the 

 trade. While one manufacturer or jobber may conscientiously make 

 a special grade for a consumer that will constitute good value, the 

 trade juggler invariably tries to "salt'' the grade to the very limit, 

 and thus secure the very maximum of profit out of each individual 

 transaction. Every manufacturer and jobber of hardwoods will tell 

 you that there is invariably more money to be made out of the "price 

 buyer'' than out of the "grade buyer.'' 



What tin' end of hardwood inspection systems will be is conjectural, 

 lint it is to be hoped that any attempt to unify thorn will eventually 

 result in the evolution of a system of grades that shall more nearly 

 cover the individual requirements of consumers. The basis of such a 

 system would be primarily the making of tin 'approximately clear 

 grade of lumber, then a sap grade, and a series of rutting grades In 

 both ripping and cross-cutting stock, which should provide for cutting 

 certain proportions of varying lengths and widths in each named 

 grade. 



Today the term •• firsts and seconds" does net mean very much, 

 atid "common'' means a good deal less. 



A New Lumber Paper. ' 



The West Virginia Saw ilill Association, over the signature of its 

 president, K. H. Stover, of Elkins, announces that in April next the 

 association will issue a trade paper "devoted to the interests of 

 lumbermen." It is stated that this journal will be owned and its 

 policy dictated by the members of the association. The excuse for 

 this publication is set forth in the following paragraph: 



"Lumbermen in West Virginia in common with those of other 

 states have suffered much from many legalized and other abuses. 

 Realizing the power of the press and that we have not laid adequate 

 support from the lumber papers in general in our efforts to minimize 

 these wrongs, we decided that the only available means at our com 

 mand, by which our side of the c:ise would be properly presented to 

 the public, was to own and publish our own organ." 



The Hakdwood Record believes that the West Virginia Saw Mill 

 Association is entirely wrong in its premises, is absolutely untruthful 

 in its statement that it has not had the support of the lumber press, 

 and that in foisting another lumber trade paper upon the public it 

 is- taking into its hands a very expensive toy. 



Within the last few years West Virginia has become a very im- 

 portant lumber producing state. Among manufacturers and whole- 

 salers of that commonwealth comparatively few have ' ' realized the 

 , power of the press," as manifested by their non-support of the lum- 

 ber trade papers, for in the past the West Virginia contingent as a 

 whole has most signally failed in lending them its aid ami patronage. 

 The wrongs and abuses of West Virginia operators have always been 

 most ably defended by the lumber newspapers, and it is an astonishing 

 piece of nerve on the part of the Saw Mill Association to allege other- 

 wise. If this body thinks it needs a distinct organ, it has a perfect 

 right to establish one, and the lumber press of the country in com- 

 mon with lumbermen of other states — although feeling that there is 

 today a plethora of lumber newspapers — will wish it godspeed in the 

 enterprise. 



Ethics of the Hardwood Trade. 



In the building \\ 1 trade it has become a recognized and intelli- 

 gent custom on the' part of both manufacturers and wholesalers to 

 market their product through the medium of retail lumber yards. 

 Wherever building lumber is consumed to the extent of even a 

 million feet a year, one or more retail lumber yards are in evidence. 



They represent, therefore, an advantageous and logical method of 

 marketing lumber used for the general run of structural purposes. 

 It would be a manufacturer of considerable temerity who would 

 undertake to supply direct to the • contractor, carpenter or house- 

 builder the miscellaneous requirements of lumber for anything 

 from a warehouse to a hencoop. Building lumber reaches its eventual 

 destination through this multitude of very essential retail yards. 

 There is no just argument against manufacturers and wholesalers 

 doing business in this way. It simply constitutes a common sense 

 method of marketing. 



On the contrary, the ethics of the hardwood trade are decidedly 

 and distinctly different. Hardwoods, almost in their entirety, are 

 sold to manufacturing consuming concerns which remanufacture into 

 furniture, woodwork for railway cars, automobiles, chairs, refriger- 

 ators, interior finish and an infinity of other things. In many cases 

 these consumers of hardwoods buy lumber in large quantities. Often 

 their annual requirements are in excess of the quantity of building 

 lumber purchased by even the largest retail yards in the country. 

 They are regular buyers, year in and year out. They are people of 

 financial responsibility. The two trades are entirely dissimilar in 

 the eventual consumption of lumber. 



Again, outside of commercial manufacturing centers hardwood 

 lumber yards do not exist save at sawmill points. It has come about 

 that the ethics of the trade demand that hardwoods shall be sold 

 dnect to wholesale consumers by manufacturers and wholesalers. 

 There is no just argument against, this system of sale, and no one 

 with the least knowledge of the radical difference between the build- 

 ing wood and hardwood lumber business will for a moment attempt 

 to controvert it or make arguments against the varying systems of 

 conducting the two lines. 



To assist manufacturers and jobbers of hardwood lumber in 

 analyzing the wholesale manufacturing consuming trade of the United 

 States and Canada and to supply them with a list of such legiti- 

 mate buyers, during the last year the Hardwood Recobd has spent 

 a good deal of time and money in preparing a list of financially 

 responsible buyers of this class, which it publishes in serial bulletins 

 and supplies gratis to every lumber advertiser represented in its 

 I aues. The system contemplates the utilization of the information 

 supplied by means of a Simple card index system, which is possible 

 nf constant enlargement and correction. Similar work is now being 

 undertaken by the Hardwood Manufacturers' Association, which pro- 

 poses to cover this same service to a considerable extent in book 

 form. 



Undoubtedly through misconception of the idea, two retail building 

 lumber associations at recent conventions passed resolutions con- 

 demning the proposed plans of the manufacturers' association in 

 making this list, and against lumber manufacturers and jobbers sell- 

 ing to this trade direct. This attitude is unqualifiedly silly on their 

 I art. Only to a very limited extent are they handlers of hardwood 

 lumber, and they have comparatively little interest in the development 

 of this branch of the industry. It is preposterous for a retailer of 

 building woods in a town of perhaps 3,000 population, whose annual 

 sales may perhaps aggregate 2,000,000 feet, to demand that a manu- 

 facturer of furniture in that town, whose annual requirements in 

 hardwoods may perhaps be 5,000,000 feet, make his purchases through 

 the medium of a building woods yard. 



In communities where manufacturing is conducted on an extensive 

 scale, as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia or St. Louis, the larger 

 quantity of hardwoods is sold through the medium of the local whole- 

 saler, who oftentimes has sawmill interests remote from these trade 

 centers and who assorts and supplies lumber extensively to the local 

 trade. While a large portion of such lumber sold to the manufac- 

 turing consumers of these communities reaches them in ear lots direct, 

 still there is another large amount of it delivered by wagons from 

 the wholesaler's local yards in less than car lots. 



This system of carrying on the manufacture and sale of hardwoods 

 has become a custom that surely will not be broken up by the radi- 

 cals of the retail building woods trade in their attempt to cry down 

 the ethics of direct sale by manufacturers and jobbers to the whole- 

 sale consuming trade. 



