HARDWOOD RECORD 



Another board on the chart shows a piece of lumlier eight inches wide 

 and fourteen feet long. This boftrd, under the 1912 rules, was No. 2 com- 

 mon, because 66 2-3 per cent cutting eouid not be gotten out of it in 

 three cutting, as required by the rules, to malse it a No. 1 common. Under 

 the 1913 rules, four cuttings, if necessary, must be made to get 66 2-3 

 per cent of the face of the board, malting this board a No. 1 common. 

 By merely changing the rules, the association adds $10 or $12 to the 

 selling price of this board without adding anything to its cutting value. 



The next board is seven inches wide and fourteen feet long. It contains 

 two knots of one and one-quarter inches in diameter. Now, under the 

 1912 rules, this board was a No. 1 common because it was less than 

 eight inches wide, whicli was the width for it to go into second clear. Uy 

 slightly changing the rules, a second clear board was allowed to be six 

 inches wide. This board, by mere clerical work. Jumped from No. 1 com- 

 mon to No. 2 clinr ami liaii .S20 added to its selling price, though noth- 

 ing had been .-I'l'l ^1 i > ii i.i<i.,ry value. 



One mill ii^ii- i i - i miiiy of lumber figures out that the changes 

 In the 1012 ml i i i induction of 7 per cent in the value. An 



Oshkosh com III li .1 :i :i) ..f No. 1 common oak, scaled by a National 

 Inspector, under the 1U12 rules. A few days later they had it sealed under 

 the 1913 rules by a National inspector, and a certificate was i.ssucd by 

 both inspectors. The value of the lumber was changed $4.26 per thousand 

 feet, being worth that much less under the 1913 inspection than under 

 the 1912 inspection — a difference of over $70 In a car of 17.000 fivt. 



RICH AND LEAN ORADES OP LUMBER 



Any one who keeps a cost system in their factory will know t'lat the 

 waste in lumber has grown from 1T> to 30 per cent greater than it was 

 in the same ijrades of lumber eight years ago. A great deal of this is on 

 account of the changes in the rules and some of it is on account of the 

 best boards of a given grade being taken out and sold as special grades 

 not recognized by tlie lumber association, leaving the balance of the grade 

 a very lean lot, but still technically within the rules, and the factory man 

 is bound to accept it. 



This winter my concern bought several cars that were first and second 

 on one face. It was exactly what we wanted for a certain purpose. 

 This lumbf r could not go into regular first and second, but was taken out 

 of the No. 1 common, and we paid $10 per thousand more for It than 

 No. 1 common. Some other factory got the balance of the No. 1 common 

 and undoubtedly paid the No. 1 common price. The buyer may have 

 realized that he was not getting a rich grade of No. 1, but under the 

 National association rules he must accept it. 



I have been a lumber jobber, and these men dominate the National 

 Hardwood Lumber .\ssocialion, buy the cut of a hardwood mill, paying 

 one price for first and second, another price for No. 1 common, and still 

 another price for No. S. When this lumber was scaled to be shipped out. 

 instead of going into the grades at which it was bought, it was sorted 

 into five to seven grades — the selects of any grade going to some customer 

 who was willing to pay for selects, and the balance of the grades to 

 somebody who could be bullied into accepting it as the grade under which 

 it was designated. 



The lumbermen justify these changes in the rules on the plea that as 

 logs grow poorer there is less high grade lumber sawed out of them, and 

 they must, therefore, reduce the cutting value of the upper grades in 

 order to get an equal amount of the three grades out of a poor log that 

 they formerly got out of a good log. 



This is so absolutely absurd, if not absolutely dishonest on the face of 

 It, that I must make a comparison-illustration. Formerly the Wisconsin 

 farmer got forty bushels of wheat from the rich virgin soil of Wisconsin, 

 but as time went on and the fertility of the soil was not kept up, the 

 crop was only twenty-five to thirty bushels to the acre. Now, supposing 

 the farmer should go to the legislature and ask that the law be changed 

 so that forty pounds of wheat would make a bushel instead of sixty, and 

 then under the law he would get about the same number of bushels he 

 formerly did. 



To be sure the consumer would not get as many pounds of flour out of 

 the bushel, but the land would be credited with producing the larger 

 number of bushels. The lumberman has reduced the cutting value of the 

 boards to the furniture manufacturer from 30 to 50 per cent, but he still 

 maintains the names of his grades. 



What the furniture manufacturer should do is to decide that he is 

 intelligent enough to specify the kinds of lumber he can best use in his 

 business and then ask the lumberman to meet those requirements and put 

 the prices on them. As it is now. the lumberman insists not only in 

 making the specifications for iumijer. but the price as well. There is no 

 other business that I know of where the man using the goods and who 

 pays his money for them has nothing to say about the specifications on 

 which the goods shall be made to meet his requirements. 



One thing casts suspicion on the lumber manufacturers. It is safe to 

 say that in nine cases out of ten, where the consumer of lumber refuses 

 a car because it is not up to grade, the dispute is settled in favor of the 

 buyer, because on at least 80 per cent of the lumber shipped the grade is 

 made as poor as the shipper thinks the buyer will, in his ijuurance of 

 exact knowledge of grading rules, accept. 



SHOULD FORMULATE INSPECTION RULES 



If this association of furniture manufacturers will formulate a set of 

 specifications of its own. that will meet the requirements of the furniture 

 industr.v. hire bonded men to inspect, in ease of dispute, and teach their 



factory inspectors the science of inspecting lumber, they will go a long 

 way toward settling the trouble of lumber rules. 



The lumberman will have his remedy in charging us a price that will pay 

 him for producing what we want. The jobber will no longer have an 

 opportunity to steal the uppers out of any grade and sell them for fancy 

 prices and ship the balance of the lumber as a full grade. 



When the saw mill man recognizes that the consumer of lumber, who 

 I)ays for the lumber, and not the lumber jobber, who juggles rules and 

 shufHes grades, is his real friend, our troubles in the lumber line will 

 be over. 



In answering the criticism of our editorial the points raised in 

 the above printed communications will be taken up in order. 



We are glad that our correspondent takes the liberal view that 

 Hardwood Record is still inclined to be fair and above board in all 

 matters, and the purpose of printing this communication and address 

 is to demonstrate that lie is correct in his assumption. It is neces- 

 sary, however, for Hardwood Record to take issue on the points 

 raised in the letter and in the address. 



As to the quotations from our editorial contained in the third 

 jaragraph of the letter, the correspondent seems to have inferred 

 that Hardwood Record was absolutely misinformed and had no basis 

 for assuming that the gra<ie agitation was the primary purpose of 

 the meeting, and that a direct effort would be made to force the 

 hand of the National Hardwood Lumber Association. As against 

 this statement Hardwood Record si-.bmits the two following excerpts 

 from letters written by the man who delivered the address before the 

 federation, who, by the way, is the man behind the whole movement, 

 being probably the most active in this effort to make the 1912 rules 

 effective in place of the 1913 rules. 



From a letter written by this man to other cDnsumers we have the 

 following: 



Perhaps you are aware that a great deal of work has been done to 

 get lumber consumers to adopt 1912 rules of inspection of the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association instead of using 1913 rules which we con- 

 sider a very unfair set of rules. We can bring aliout this adherence to 

 1912 rules at the present time if we go after it and stay by it because 

 the lumbermen are anxious to sell now. Later on if we are not well or- 

 ganized and the lumber business gets brisk, we may have some trouble. 



As further evidence that this question of hardwood inspection was 

 of unusual interest at the federation meeting we have the following 

 resolutions which were adopted by that body officially: 



Resolved, that on the organization of the confederation of the asso- 

 ciations, a committee of seven be appointed to draw up a set of lumber 

 inspection rules for the use of the lumber consumers, and that until that 

 committee reports and its report is adopted, we adhere strictly to the 

 1912 rules of the National Hardwood Lumber Association in all our lum- 

 ber purchases. Furthermore, requests for quotations coming from any 

 consumers attending the meeting are now stamped with the following : 

 "We accept lumber inspected according to National Hard.wood Lumber 

 Association only according to rules adopted .lune. 1912." 



The following quotation is from a letter addressed by this man 

 to the editor of Hardwood Record personally, and is in response to 

 a letter in which an effort was made to answer a former communica- 

 tion on this same point. In speaking of the suggestion made in our 

 letter he says: 



I hope you will allow me to use it at the Chicago massmeeting. where 

 I appear on the program, the fourteenth of the month, on the question of 

 lumber grading. Your position exactly explains the proposition that we 

 are protesting and nothing could bring it out more clearly than to read 

 jour letter. 



From the first quotation it seems that there is no reasonable doubt 

 that the purpose was to organize at this time for the specific purpose 

 of creating uniform adherence to 1912 rules, and this impression is 

 amply substantiated by the quotation from the second letter from 

 the same writer specifically referring to the massmeeting, after hav- 

 ing said that this is the propitious time to organize for this par- 

 ticular purpose. 



Inasmuch as communications coming from this man can reasonably 

 be considered as coming from headquarters, inasmuch as he has been 

 the man behind the proposition. Hardwood Record is most certainly 

 justified in assuming that one of the most important funetious before 

 the massmeeting was the question of grading, granting, of course, 

 that other important questions were up for consideration. 



As to the paragraph in the above printed communication in which 

 our correspondent quotes from the editorial referred to, saying: 

 ' ' The consumers have not shown the proper spirit in working out 



