HARDWOOD RECORD 



34A 



vance of the railroads on hardwood shipments 

 between Nashville and Chattanooga to Buffalo 

 and Pittsburj; and points taking like rates. The 

 Memphis lumbermen believe they can knock out 

 the railroads in view of the precedent set in the 

 ■case of the two-cent advance some time since on 

 yellow pine. The advance on hardwood sbi|)- 

 ments of which they are now complaining was 

 2^ cents. 



The lumber firm of Wistar, Unrterhill & Co. of 

 Philadelphia has established a yard in East Nash- 

 Tille, with Robert Vernon in charge. The com- 

 pany will use it as an accumulating point. 



The Nashville Tie & Cedar Company reports 

 the loss of 5.000 cross ties in Harpeth river due 

 to a sudden and unexpected tide. This river 

 runs through the highland rim of middle Ten- 

 oiessee. emptying into the Cumberland between 

 Nashville and Clarksville, and much hardwood 

 timber grows along its rotite. Some 3.000 of the 

 ties were afterwards caught near and below 

 ■Clarksville. 



Visitors to the city during the past few days 

 -were : J. D. Bixby, manager of the Bixby-Thiesen 

 Lumber Company of Decatur, Ala., and J. A. 

 Mathesen o£ the Central Lumber Company. De- 

 troit, Mich. 



The Chauncey Lamb, one of the towboats of the 

 Nashville Transportation Company, came down 

 the river this weel5 with possibly the last tow 

 of the season — five big barges of staves and lum- 

 ber, picked up mostly at Highland, Taylor's 

 Brancli and Lee's Landing. 



John B. Ransom of the big local lumber Arm 

 ■of John B. Ransom & Co., and president of the 

 Hardwood Manufacturers' Association, was this 

 weelt the recipient of another honor. He was 

 elected a member of the Board of Trustees of 

 Vanderbilt University, notwithstanding the fact 

 that he is not an alumnus of the university. 

 Mr. Ransom, however, has always manifested 

 the keenest interest in the affairs of the uni- 

 versity, and his only son is a student in the iu- 

 stitution. William K. Vanderbilt, the New York 

 millionaire, and E. S. BuiBngton, the Chicago 

 steel magnate and millionaire, were among the 

 others elected, as was also Charles N. Burch, 

 general counsel of the Illinois Central railroad. 



A bad sawmill explosion is reported this weeli 

 from Lyies'. on the Centreville branch of the 

 N., C. & St. L. railway. The boiler at Blakeley's 

 mill blew up and landed a hundred feet away, 

 wrecking the plant. Wade Bates, an employee 

 of the N. & C, had his skull crushed ; Mrs. Quil- 

 lie Tidwell, a bystander, had one leg crushed so 

 badly that amputation was necessary, and Will 

 Nelson and Race Goulden were badly scalded. 

 No insurance was carried on the mill. 



Reports from the upper Cumberland state that 

 4.000 fine saw logs have been swept away from 

 the booms of the Kentucky Lumber Company of 

 Williamsburg and are on their way toward Nash- 

 ville. A heavy rainstorm came up unexpectedly 

 and swelled the upper river. Immediately after 

 the timber escaped local firms were wired not 

 to buy any lumber bearing the mark of the Ken- 

 tucky Lumber Company. 



Local lumbermen this week in the criminal 

 court at Nashville are prosecuting J. D. Miller 

 and John Dodd on the charge of maliciously cut- 

 ting loose four rafts because the lumber concerns 

 refused to pay any more "bankage" charges to 

 the defendants. Miller was a few weeks since 

 convicted of breaking into places where local 

 lumbermen bad rope stored and stealing It, and 

 .got a sentence of three years. 



Len K. Hart, administrator of the late Chal- 

 mers Vestal of Baxter, Tenn., will on Tuesday, 

 June 2.5, sell at Cookeville 41,000 feet of lumber 

 located at various sawmills controlled by the 

 deceased at the time of his death. A portable 

 sawmill is also to be sold. 



Large numbers of saw logs adrift are reported 

 as having passed Carthage, Tenn., during the 

 past few days. It is believed some of these are 

 the property of the Kentucky Luml>er Company, 

 which lost 4,000 as stated above. 



H. S. Knox of the traffic department of the 

 N.. C. & St. L. railway was at Pond. Tenn., last 

 week with a view to locating side-tracks for a 

 new hoop factory to be established there. 



Lumbermen cutting up a log of black oak in 

 the woods near Charlotte, Tenn.. struck some- 

 thing hard, which on examination proved to be 

 a large minnie ball, a relic of tlie civil war. A 

 troop of (^'onfederate cavalry was pursued 

 tlirough Charlotte during the war and took ref- 

 uge in the timber surrounding the town. 



The new mill of the W. J. Cude Land & Lum- 

 ber Company at Colesburg. Tenn., is a scene of 

 great activity. Since the recent establishment 

 of the plant at that point some 2,000,000 feet of 

 lumber has been cut. 



C. B. Benedict has returned from a trip to 

 Polk county, where the Sylco Lumber Company 

 recently began operations. Crews are hard at 

 work building a spur track to the property and 

 machinery for the new plant has been pur- 

 chased. 



The firm of Lieberman, Loveman & O'Brien is 

 preparing to install about $15,000 worth of new 

 machinery at its plant in South Nashville. The 

 mills and planing mill will shut down for a 

 short while about July 1 in order that the new 

 macliinery may be quickly put in position. 



Statistics compiled by the government com- 

 paring the production of lumljer in Tennessee in 

 1000 as against that for 1905 show a steady in- 

 crease during the past year in every line over 

 the previous year. This is true of white oak, 

 .yellow poplar, red oak, chestnut, shortleaf pine, 

 red gum, white pine, hemlock, ash, hickory, bass- 

 wood, Cottonwood, elm, cedar and walnut. 



Loggers cutting up a tree at Greenfield, Tenn., 

 struck something hard and were surprised to find 

 a grindstone fifteen inches in diameter. The 

 story goes that a settler in that community, 'way 

 back in 1844, put the grindstone in a hollow 

 tree to hide it and that the tree grew up and 

 closed the hole, thus hiding its queer package. 



The plant of the American Pencil Company at 

 Murfreesboro, Tenn,, is reported to be nearly 

 completed. The plant will cost about $35,000 

 and will work quite a force of men. EfiEorts are 

 being made by Murfreesboro to get the Eagle 

 Pencil Company to erect a factory there. 



John B. Ransom of John B. Ransom & Co. is 

 out in an interview in which he refutes the charge 

 of a local paper that there is a lumber trust 

 in Nashville. "There is no lumber trust here of 

 any kind," says Mr. Ransom, "or even a com- 

 bination of lumbermen for the purpose of fixing 

 prices. The inexorable law of supply and de- 

 mand fixes the prices of lumber in this and other 

 markets, and lumber and timber are now so hard 

 to get and the demand for them so large the 

 lumbermen would have no incentive to make 

 higher prices, even if they were so disposed. 

 * • * But lumber is not higher than other 

 commodities as compared with the prices of a 

 few years ago. In the past five years farm 

 products and labor, wheat and cotton, have ad- 

 vanced as much or more than lumber. In regard 

 to the influence of the price of lumber on build- 

 ing, it should be borne in mind that not more 

 than twenty-three per cent of the total cost of 

 any house is the lumber. Of course I do not 

 include in this the finishings in a house, the 

 larger part of which is the shop work and the 

 labor." 



A special from SheflSeld, Ala., announces that 

 the firm of Tuthill & Pattison of that city has 

 just closed a contract with the government to 

 supply a large amount of the heavy timber to 

 be used in the construction of the Panama Canal. 

 The material will be shipped as soon as it can 

 be gotten out from the mill. 



W. S. Bryant of Cookeville, Tenn., charged 

 with the murder of Chalmers Vestal, late presi- 

 dent of the Caney Fork Lumber Company, has 

 filed a petition praying for his release from jail 

 on a writ of habeas corpus. He was committed 

 to jail without bond and claimed he was clearly 

 entitled to bail. He called upon the prosecution 



to show cause why he should be retained and 

 was allowed ball in the sum of $10,000. 



A special from Crossville, Tenn., announces 

 that the Coleman ' Lumber & Mining Company, 

 which recently bought the property of the Powell 

 Lumber & Mining Company and the Goodstock 

 Dimension Company, is arranging to put in sev- 

 eral mills on this property for its development. 



The farmers of middle Tennessee are now haul- 

 ing loads of red cedar rails to town and selling 

 them to dealers in red cedar, mostly pencil fac- 

 tories. Some of the fences being sold thus have 

 been in use for seventy years and are still well 

 preserved. 



Love, Boyd & Co. have bought a 300-acre tim- 

 ber tract in Smith county, Kentucky, and will 

 attack it at once. It cost $8,500. 



Farmers around Decatur, Ala., are said to be 

 clearing .$2.50 a rod in the sale of their cedar 

 rail fences. They get $.■! a rod for them and are 

 replacing them with wire fences costing $.').. 50 a 

 rod. The local stock laws are making the latter 

 variety of fence very much in demand. 



Three car loads of fine Michigan maple were 

 shipped here recently through John B. liansom & 

 Co. to be used for flooring for the big coliseum 

 skating rink at Glendale Park. 



Memphis. 



Distinct imijrovement is noted in weather con- 

 ditions throughout the Memphis hardwood pro- 

 ducing territory, and there is decided increase 

 in the amount of timber being gotten out and 

 in the amount of lumber being placed on sticks. 

 Some mills, with limited facilities, are still un- 

 able to rtin. l>ut the majority of the larger and 

 stronger plants are running on full time and 

 their output is now larger than it has been at 

 any time within the last eight or nine months. 

 Manufacturers generally express the hope that 

 such favorable weather will continue indefinitely. 

 They are of the opinion that it will require sev- 

 eral months to make up for the shortage in pro- 

 duction experienced during the past few months. 

 No one suggests tlie probability or even possi- 

 bility of the accumulation of anything like a 

 surplus of hardwood lumber. In the extreme 

 lowlands, where Cottonwood is largely produced, 

 the ground is still rather wet, but the prevail- 

 ing impression is that most of the Cottonwood 

 plants will be going on full time by the first of 

 July. Cottonwood mills in the larger cities are 

 now turning out a good supply of this lumber. 



While production is increasing, it may be also 

 noted that there is a decided increase in the 

 amount of hardwood lumber being shipped. This 

 is due to the fact that weather conditions are 

 such that lumber may be loaded promptly on 

 cars, and to the additional fact that the 

 railroads are furnishing all the cars nec- 

 essary for the handling of lumber ship- 

 ments. Reports received here from Little Rock, 

 Nashville, Jackson and other leading centers in- 

 dicate that the movement of hardwood lumber 

 is exceptionall.v heavy. A great deal of this 

 lumber would have been delivered long ago if 

 weatiier conditions and the car situation had 

 been as favorable as now. 



Messrs. Gibson and Whitaker have formed a 

 partnership for the manufacture of thin hard- 

 wood stock. The principals are W. G. Gibson, 

 for some years deputy inspector of the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association, and J. D. L. 

 Whitaker, who was for some years engaged in 

 the railroad business but who has been the 

 cashier of the Bennett Hardwood Lumber Com- 

 pany for the past five years. These gentlemen 

 have leased the plant of the Art Wood Manu- 

 facturing Company in New South Memphis and 

 have secured some machinery therefrom. This 

 will be supplemented by new equipment, which 

 will be installed within the next few days. The 

 mill will be entirely new and will have a dail.v 

 capacity of 60,000 feet. It will be ready for 

 operation within the next two weeks. These 

 gentlemen will also manufacture veneer, the 

 dally output being estimated at 7,000 feet. 



