HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



very great. The Forest Service conducted experiments by which it 

 was shown possible to draw the resin from the pines without laying 

 them liable to destruction. This has been a direct, positive help to 

 lumbermen. Large quantities of pine go into lumber which would 

 be going up in smoke; or, thrown by wind, would be destroyed by 

 boring insects, if more consers-ative methods of turpentining had not 

 been demonstrated by the government. 



There is a branch of Forest Service work now being carried on 

 which gets into the closest touch with lumbermen and the manufac- 

 turers of wood commodities. It deals directly with uses and mate- 

 rials, and has no theories to work out. The work has been done, or 

 is under way, in every state. It is generally carried out in co-opera- 

 tion with the state. It is a study of the factories which use wood. 

 The purpose is to show what the best uses are for each of the com- 

 mercial species of the country. The amounts of the individual woods 

 used in the various industries of each state are ascertained. This infor- 

 mation is valuable, because it shows what species are becoming scarce 

 and in what region the supply is most abundant or scarcest, and how 

 the cost of the same wood ranges in the different parts of the country. 

 Careful attention is given to the question of substituting one wood 

 for another. If one is scarce and costly, perhaps another that is 

 abundant and cheap will answer. New species, or those not hitherto 

 much used, are investigated. In many instances they have been found 

 entirely satisfactoi'y where those more expensive had been employed. 



The practical value of the work consists in bringing to the atten- 

 tion of lumbermen and wood-workers all available information con- 

 cerning every wood in the country, that has been found fit for any- 

 thing. This knowledge can be and is being applied by owners of 

 timber who have kinds which were formerly unsalable. The buyer 

 of lumber makes use of the information also. He learns of species 

 which will answer seme purpose of his, and do it as well as another 

 wood for which he has been paying more. The result is more com- 

 plete utilization. More kinds are employed; and they are used to 

 better advantage. 



The same series of work includes an investigation of waste, and 

 seeks remedies. In numerous instances manufacturers have learned 

 from published reports how to make money from their scrap heaps. 

 Yet the Forest Service is not making these experiments — the manu- 

 facturers are doing that. The government simply collects the results 

 of the experiments, trials, and attempts, and if anything is found 

 which promises to be useful, it is embodied in the published report of 

 wood-using industries in that state, and every manufacturer of wood 

 products, every seller of lumber or owner of timber in the country is 

 welcome to any of the information which he wants. Many of them 

 are using it to their proiit. 



The Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wis., is conducting 

 numerous experiments for the purpose of discovering new uses of 

 wood, or improvements in old uses. It is studying preservation of 

 timber by chemical or mechanical treatment to make wood last longer 

 in positions where it is likely to decay, notably as railroad ties, mine 

 timbers, fence posts, paving blocks, and telephone poles. It is test- 

 ing timbers to determine their strength and their power of resistance 

 to strain and mechanical wear. This is for the benefit of budders 

 who employ wood as framework. The seasoning of wood is being 

 investigated for the benefit of' sawmill men, and of factories which 

 use large quantities of lumber. Tests are carried on for the purpose 

 of discovering new sources of pulp, species never tried before. This 

 information should benefit the owners of timber which is not in 

 immediate demand for sawmill products, particularly timber that 

 would go into low class lumber or into the waste heap. 



Work which the laboratory is doing is of a kind which the indi- 

 vidual lumberman or wood-worker could not well do for himself. The 

 experiments and tests must be on too large a scale for the individual 

 to carry through. The apparatus with which the laboratory is equipped 

 is expensive, and specially trained engineers are required for the 

 technical work. 



The processes are necessarily slow. There is no guess work about 

 them, but conclusions are reached, point by point. For example, time 

 is required to test the value of a process for prevention of decay. 

 The thing cannot be thought out, but must be tried out. The treated 



timbers must be submitted to the test of time. A mode of treat- 

 ment for cross-ties or mine timbers cannot be known to have value 

 until it is shown by trial that it will make wood last longer. 



There has always been a lack of trustworthy data in this country 

 on the mechanical properties of timber— its strength, hardness, 

 elasticity, weight, and lasting properties— and the laboratory is work- 

 ing to supply what is lacking. The principal, practical results of its 

 work will be to devise ways to make woods last longer; to determine 

 what species will best fulfill requirements demanded by builders and 

 engineers; to save waste in the woods and at the mill by converting 

 it into salable by-products; to test wood-working machines to deter- 

 mine which kinds are most efficient and economical. 



Time is required in reaching reliable results, and during the three 

 years the laboratory has been in operation it has made rapid progress 

 toward that end. 



New York Shows Building Gain 



The general impression of active building felt liy the visitor to 

 New York is substantiated by figures recently published covering the 

 building operations in that city for August, 1912, and comparing 

 them with August, 1911. 



During this period there has been an actual gain of over one-hundred 

 per cent in the amount of new operations. The total value of all 

 new operations during the month of August, 1912, is $13,253,057. 

 These figures cover only the Island of Manhattan or New York proper. 

 Gains are also shown in the Bronx, while greater New York col- 

 lectively shows a gain of seven per cent. 



Considering the various boroughs making up the greater city 

 building operations for August, 1912, increased over operations during 

 that month in 1911 by fifty-four per cent and represented a total cost 

 this year of $18,029,294. The total gain in buUding in the city for the 

 period from January 1 to September 1, as compared with that period 

 of last year, was twentj-four per cent. 



Suspension of Through Rate Advances 



Proposed advances in rates from southern points to points in On- 

 tario and Quebec, which were to have become effective on September 

 1, have been suspended until December 30 by the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission with a view of enabling it to examine the claims of both 

 sides. The suspension is a direct result of a written protest emanat- 

 ing from St. Louis shippers. 



In the formal protest the shippers stated their case as follows: 



That said defendants are common carriers engaged in the transportation 

 of passengers and property from rjoints in tlie states of Arkansas 

 Louisiana. Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Florida. Ohio. Indiana, Illinois 

 and Missouri, to points in the Dominion of Canada, nnd as such common 

 cai-rici-s are subject to the act to regulate commerce, approved February 4, 

 1S.S7, and acts since enacted which are amendatory thereof or supple- 

 mentary thereto. 



That tbe complainant maintains and operates a general selling office in 

 St. Louis in the state of Missouri, and is int»resfed in mills located in the 

 various southern states mentioned, and is the shipper of lumber and other 

 forest products from these states to various points in the Dominion oi 

 Canada over the lines of the defendants. 



That the defendants in their supplements and other tariffs hiive served 

 notice to the complainants that on and after September 1, 1912, the rates 

 on lumber and other forest products from all Ohio and Jlississippi river 

 crossings to points in the Dominion of Canada will be changed — most 

 instanc's increased one cent per hundred, and in some instances increased 

 seven cents per hundred. 



That the defendants, by issuing the supplements mentioned, have ex- 

 ceeded in some cases the rates on lumber and other forest products from 

 Ohio and Mississippi river crossings that are now published in their 

 various issues covering the sixth class rates, and which have always been 

 be d nnd maintained as the maximum rates on lumber: that heretofore the 

 rate frrni Cairo to Toronto has been nineteen cents, and which is the 

 sixth-class rate in the class tariffs. The new supplements, effective Sep- 

 tember 1, have exceeded the class rate and are published at twenty 

 cents. 



That the defendants, in committee tariff, issued by Eugene Morris 

 131B. Supplement 11. I. C. C. No. 281, have printed rates to Canadian 

 points and have indicated them by a character sign as a reduction, while 

 in reality the rates as are published by them are an advance. 



That the complainants maintain the rates as are shown in the tariffs 

 above referred to are unreasonable, discriminatory and uniust : by reason 

 of the fact that they exceed the present rates now in effect, and that 

 furtlier. the railroad companies in the United States are not eomnlaining 

 as to the revenue, neither have they registered a complaint that the 

 rates as carried are not remunerative, but that in view of the attitude 

 assumed by the Canadian lines in regard to the divisions of revenue, the 

 roads in the United States are forced to make this advance in tbe rates 

 in order to comply with the demands of the Canadian lines, and that the 

 entire advance is not based with a view of advancing rates, but with a 

 vie"- of nHi'i^ring an arbitrary division demanded by the Canadian roads. 



The statement also enumerated exactly the advanced rates com- 

 plained of. 



