24 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Lost, Strayed or Stolen? 



A further instance of slow delivei'y by rail- 

 roads, which has of late become a serious 

 menace to trade, has just come to hand, and 

 as It is even more remarkable than any of the 

 tales of woe yet told by lumbermen, It is worthy 

 of repetition. 



A carload of lumber — the Southern Pacific 

 railway's No. 17228 — arrived at Maiden, Mass., 

 April 9, which has evidently been a wanderer 

 over the face of the earth for nine years. It 

 has been offered to one firm after another, but 

 has been unable to find a home up to date, al- 

 though it is now being temporarily sheltered by 

 hospitable yard hands in Maiden. In identically 

 the same box car in which it was first loaded, 

 in 1898 at Bangor, X. Y., the lumber rests unmo- 

 lested, with the original seal unbroken. It now 

 bears the name of the Sw'eezey Lumber Company 

 of Maiden, but that concern disclaims all knowl- 

 edge of the shipment, and of course refuses to 

 accept it, basing their contention that the car 

 Is not for them on the ground that they were 

 not in business nine years ago, and the bill of 

 lading shows that it was consigned September 

 12, 1898. The following day it put in an appear- 

 ance at Rouse Point, N. Y., bearing a tag ad- 

 dressed to the J. A. Shepard Lumber Company — 

 which no one there knew, or had ever heard of. 

 So once more it started on its weary way. On 

 October 5 of that year it appeared in Burling- 

 ton, Vt., but nobody wanted it, so it "went right 

 In and turned around and went right out again." 

 From that day to this it has traveled hither and 

 thither — nobody knows where — until its sudden 

 appearance in Maiden. 



The value of a load of lumber of the size and 

 quality contained in the mysterious car would 

 have about doubled its value in nine years, in 

 addition to the fact that it would have become 

 thoroughly seasoned. At the same time the use 

 of it for so long a time would doubtless run up 

 a pretty bill with the railroad companies, so it 

 is a question whether the original consignee, 

 should he ever step in and claim his own, would 

 have a diamond mine or a gold brick on his 

 hands. 



Important Decision, 



The supreme court of Virginia, sitting at 

 Richmond, handed down on April 6 an impor- 

 tant decision in the case of J. A. Wilkinson of 

 Bristol vs. Norfolk & Western Railway Com- 

 pany and Old Dominion Steamship Company, 

 deciding a hitherto unadjudicated point and 

 establishing a Judicial precedent of incalculable 

 benefit to shippers not only in Virginia but all 

 over the country. 



Mr. Wilkinson shipped a considerable amount 

 of high class hardwood lumber to New York 

 over the Norfolk & Western and Old Dominion 

 lines. The lumber was delayed and when it 

 reached New York the prices had dropped so 

 that Mr. Wilkinson sustained a heavy loss. He 

 brought suit in the law and chancery court at 

 Norfolk against the Norfolk & Western and Old 

 Dominion Steamship Company for damages. The 

 companies would neither disclose upon which line 

 the delay occurred and on a well established 

 principle of law which they have hitherto plead 

 successfully called upon the plaintiff to prove 

 his case and show which one of them had 

 caused the delay. This he could not do, as he 

 was without proof, and the power of discovering 

 this did not He with him. He won the case in 

 the lower court, being the first time that a 

 state court had repudiated the doctrine that a 

 defendant cannot generally be made to disclose 

 facts to his own detriment. The case then 

 attracted the attention of shippers everywhere. 

 The defendants appealed to the supreme court 

 and the decision afiirming the judgment of the 

 .-•ourt below was rendered by Judge Cardwell 

 April 6. and in commenting on the case he used 

 these words : "It would be a denial of justice, 

 as it seems to us, if the law wirhheld from ship- 



pers, in such a case as this, the right of recov- 

 ery, where from the nature of the case he Is 

 powerless to trace the negligence to the particu- 

 lar carrier concerned, and where, perhaps, by 

 agreement between them, or collusion, each de- 

 clines to introduce evidence to establish Its own 

 freedom from negligence, because the establish- 

 ment of this freedom from negligence of the 

 one would place the fault on the other." 



The court further held that where a plaintiff 

 establishes by evidence that there was a delay, 

 this Is a prima facie case against the initial 

 carrier and it must show itself free from negli- 

 gence. 



The holding of the appellate tribunal is a 

 very important one to shippers everywhere and 

 will be cited in other states in analogous cases 

 as a precedent upon this point which has here- 

 tofore been without the light of judicial con- 

 struction. 



A Big White Ash. 

 W. T. Schnaufer of the Crescent Lumber Com- 

 pany, Marietta, O., supplied the photograph 

 from which the halftone reproduced herewith 

 was made. This white ash tree, which was 5 

 feet in diameter two and one-half feet from the 

 ground, is a specimen of the timber growth on 

 the Crescent Lumber Company's new timber 

 holdings in West Virginia. The company pur- 



A BIG WEST VIRGINIA 'WHITE ASH. 



chased a few months ago 8.000 acres of timber 

 land In Clay county. West Virginia, the prepon- 

 derance of growth on the property being poplar, 

 oak and chestnut. The company is already 

 planning to commence active milling operations. 

 Incidentally, the Crescent Lumber Company is 

 engaged in moving its otEces from Harmer street 

 in Marietta to the First National Bank build- 

 ing, in which it has secured a handsome suite 

 on the fifth floor, consisting of five rooms. 



The Fischer Lumber Company. 



The I-'lscher Lumber Company has been Incor- 

 porated at Kewanee, 111., to manufacture lumber 

 and wholesale it from Its sawmill, to be located 

 about twelve miles from Sikeston, Mo. The 

 company will be thoroughly organized in the 

 immediate future, and will first establish a large 

 mill on property which it owns on the main line 

 of the Frisco railroad, about a hundred miles 

 south of St. Louis. Upon the land owned by 

 this company cypress, oak, gum, ash, sycamore 

 and other hardwoods grow in abundance. The 

 demand Is such that the company already has 

 offers for all the lumber it can make. A switch 

 from the Frisco line will be Installed to facili- 

 tate shipping. The Incorporators of the new 

 company are John Fischer, W. E. Gould and 

 F. H. Davis of Kewanee. 



Maple Sugar Production. 



When the early spring days come on, followed 

 by the usual cold nights, the sap begins to flow 

 In trees, and the maple sugar season Is "on." 

 In olden times the farmers made thousands of 



"spiles'* of willow, mountain ash, alder or other 

 wood with a pithy center. TTiese spiles were 

 sticks about six inches In length, cut and shaped 

 so one end could be driven Into a hole made in 

 the tree, while the other end was cut so as to 

 form an open spout. The farmers and their 

 help worked at odd times all winter forming 

 these tools and burning out the pith with hot 

 irons. Then when the weather Indicated a run 

 of sap men would go through the woods and 

 tap the selected trees a few feet from the 

 ground. A hole an inch or more In diameter 

 was bored to receive the spile, and a bucket 

 placed to receive the drippings. Ancient as is 

 this method of tapping, some farmers still em- 

 ploy It, although now there are galvanized iron 

 spouts on the market which fit into the tree at 

 one end and into a covered pail at the other. 



Every night and morning sleds drawn by 

 heavy draft horses and containing large tubs 

 or tanks pass around among the trees : the driv- 

 ers take the pails and pour their accumulated 

 contents into the tubs, which are returned to 

 the boiling cabin. After gathering up the sap 

 in the morning, the teams are usually kept busy 

 hauling wood for the fires, which must be ke^t 

 at a steady heat day and night during the whole 

 process of making the sugar. 



For many years farmers boiled the maple 

 sap in the open air, in kettles supported on 

 rocks : later they adopted a cabin made of rough 

 logs, or merely a sort of shed with bark thatch. 

 At the present time throughout the maple for- 

 ests in New England may be found well equipped 

 sugar houses, containing huge kettles set in 

 brick, over open furnaces or fireplaces, and con- 

 nected by a conveyor pipe running across them. 

 The sap is poured into a huge vat, also in the 

 circuit, and the conveyor Is provided with 

 valves which permit Its distribution into all or 

 part of the kettles, as desired. Benches and 

 tables are provided for the comfort of occu- 

 pants, and the fires under the kettles keep the 

 abode warm and pleasant. An expert sugar 

 maker Is usually in charge of each boiling 

 house, and never leaves it until the end of the 

 season. Each vessel has to be carefully and 

 continually watched: If the maker does not stir 

 the boiling sap enough, or correctly, or if he 

 stirs it too much, the result will be disastrous 

 in that the sugar will be burned or otherwise 

 ruined. It takes a trained and practiced eye to 

 recognize the precise moment when the boiling 

 mass should be run off into moulds and hardened 

 for the sugar market, for if syrup be too thin 

 It will not command a good price, and if too 

 thick the unnecessary loss will be considerable. 

 When the expert decides that the liquid is 

 "right" — which he does by testing large spoon- 

 fuls of it In pans of snow till the right consis- 

 tency appears — he draws It off Into moulds, each 

 of which holds just the amount to make the 

 proper sized cake of sugar, or into tin cans 

 with corks and screw tops to hold the liquid 

 form. 



It is a well known fact that many manufac- 

 turers make their actual maple product go 

 twice as far as do others, by purchasing large 

 quantities of brown sugar and boiling it up 

 with the sap — thus often using only one-third 

 or even less of the genuine product. Of course, 

 their output Is very materially increased in this 

 way, but the experienced buyer can detect the 

 fraud, and they cannot command nearly so high 

 a price for their goods as do manufacturers 

 who put out "the real thing." The new pure 

 food law should tend to curtail this practice to 

 a great extent, as it will now be necessary for 

 makers to label their product so that the exact 

 percentage of adulterating material contained 

 therein may be seen by a glance at the wrapper 

 or can : it should also prevent retail buyers hav- 

 ing to pay a fancy price for adulterated map'e. 

 which the expert wholesale buyer has obtained 

 at Its real value from the manufacturer. 



The maple sugar and syrup industry is much 



