3oB 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Smith, D. G. Hart, S. G. Holland and Leroy 

 McGregor. 



A project is on foot in Nashville to secure a 

 new railroad running from Nashville to Ilunls- 

 ville, Ala. The promoters want the citizens of 

 Nashville to siibscril)e for .$7o.noO worth of 

 stocli in the road and Nashville lumbermen have 

 subscribed as follows : Love, Boyd & Co., ,'[;2,00 ; 

 John B. Ransom & Co., ¥250 ; Nashville Hard- 

 wood Flooring Company, .f 100 ; Standard Lum- 

 ber & Bos Company, .$100 ; W. .7. Wallace, $100 ; 

 J. H. Baird, $100 ; A. E. Baird, $100 ; E. & N. 

 Manufacturing Company, $250 ; A. L. Hayes & 

 Co., $200. 



The American Pencil Company has about com- 

 pleted arrangements to erect a large pencil fac- 

 tory at Murfreesboro, Tenn. Murfreesboro is 

 probably the largest red cedar market in the 

 world. There is considerable growth of this 

 very valuable timber remaining in this section, 

 and in addition practically all the fences in the 

 county are built of red cedar rails. The pencil 

 companies are now buying these rail fences and 

 putting up other kinds of fences for the farmers 

 in order to get the cedar. 



J. H. McCall and Gray Sanders of Hunting- 

 don, Tenn., are erecting a saw mill at West 

 Port, near Hiintingdon. 



Work has begun on the new saw and stave 

 factory that is being built by the C. C. Mengel 

 & Bro. Company of Louisville, at Hickman, Ky. 



The W. J. Cude Land & Lumber Company has 

 moved its ofhccs into the new Stahlman sky- 

 scraper. 



A. E. Baird has .lust returned from a business 

 trip to Texas and Mexico. 



V. J. Blow, president of the Hiram Blow Stave 

 Company, is back from a business trip through 

 Mississippi and Louisiana. 



Nashville has nearly a score of woodworking 

 plants and they are all running overtime in 

 order to try and keep pace with the heavy de- 

 mand for building material. In spite of the 

 large number of suburban lots into which tracts 

 around the city are being subdivided, numerous 

 houses are springing up on them and it is these 

 that are keeping the plants busy. Some of the 

 larger plants are turning out contracts for hand- 

 some structures in many parts of the country. 

 The box factories here are also doing a record 

 business and many of them have been forced 

 to go into distant territory to get all the gum 

 and other varieties they use in their business. 



Memphis. 



Lumbermen in this city and throughout this 

 section are much interested in the outcome of 

 the case of the E. Sondheimer Company against 

 the Illinois Central and Yazoo & Mississippi Val- 

 ley Railroad companies, hearing on which was 

 begun In the federal court recently before lion. 

 Judson C. Clements, a member of the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission. The plaintiff alleges dis- 

 crimination in favor of Memphis and against 

 Cairo, III., in the matter of rates on lumber, the 

 allegation being made that Cairo does not enjoy 

 the reconsignment privileges which have lieen 

 given to Memphis. Mr. Clements had to leave 

 Memphis for other hearings before the conclu- 

 sion of this case and will resume the hearing in 

 a short time. J. ,T. Bruner, traffic manager for 

 the E. Sondheimer Company, and members of 

 that firm have appeared and given testimony, 

 while a number of railroad men have been exam- 

 ined for the defense. Lumber interests of Mem- 

 phis will take a hand when the hearing is re- 

 sumed, the Lumbermen's Club being represented 

 by its regular counsel. In addition to Ibis, 

 however, there is a movement among local 

 wholesale handlers of hardwood lumber, who 

 would be aftected more than other interests by 

 an adverse decision, to employ associate counsel, 

 though no definite statement is obtainable at 

 this time. Reconsignment privileges have played 

 an important part in the development of the 

 Memphis market, especially in the building up 

 of this center as a distrilniting and yarding 



point, and the Lumbermen's Club will do every- 

 thing it can to prevent an un£avoral)le decision 

 in this case. There is no opposition on the part 

 of Memphis lumbermen to the granting of re- 

 consignment privileges to Cairo liy the defendant 

 roads, but there is a very strong protest against 

 taking away from Memphis the privileges now 

 enjoyed. Moreover, the plaintiff company does 

 not care how the equalization of rates is ef- 

 fected, whether through the abrogation of the 

 privileges given Memphis or through the grant- 

 ing of similar ones at Cairo. There is a sug- 

 gestion that the reconsignment privilege is not 

 exactly legal and that the commission may so 

 hold, but local lumlier interests are encouraged 

 over the fact that the commission has ruled that 

 while it is anxious to remove this practice wher- 

 ever po.ssible it will not do so unless the letter 

 of the law demands it in cases where large busi- 

 ness interests would be affected by such a rul- 

 ing. Cotton and grain interests would be as se- 

 riously affected as the lumbermen if the com- 

 mission should declare the reconsignment prac- 

 tice illegal. 



The Rust Land & Lumber Company, a corpo- 

 ration affiliated with the Three States Lumber 

 Company and the W. E. Smith Lumber Com- 

 pany, is building a mill at Merrouge, La., to 

 cut cypress timber at that point. The plant 

 is a circular one and will have only a moderate 

 capacity. It will be ready for operation within 

 the next thirty days. 



The Three States Lumber Company is making 

 good progress on its planing mill at Burdett. 

 Ark., and with favorable weather conditions will 

 have this in readiness for operation within the 

 next fifty to sixty days. The big band mill of 

 tlie same company at Burdett, Ark., is being op- 

 crated both day and night in order that con- 

 siderable accumulated timber may be cut up 

 before it has sustained any damage. 



The Bellgrade Lumber Company, the corpora- 

 tion recently launched by Thompson & McClure 

 and Crenshaw & Catliey, reports through A. N. 

 Thompson, vice president, that ninety-flve per 

 cent of the machinery has been shipped to Bel- 

 zoni, Miss., where it recently acquired a large 

 site, and that actual construction of the plant 

 is under way. Mr. Thompson estimates that the 

 mill will be ready for operation within about 

 sixty days. 



The conference held here April 22 between 

 the river and rail committee of the Lumbermen's 

 Club and higli officials of the railroads operating 

 in Memphis territory did not accompli.sh any- 

 thing deflnlle, but the feeling among Ijoth lum- 

 bermen and the railroad interests after adjourn- 

 ment was that much good would result from the 

 interchange of views. Various subjects were 

 discussed from the standpoint of both the rail- 

 road men and the committee representing the 

 lumber interests of this city. 



John W. McClure, secretary of the Lumber- 

 men's Club, who, with President George X). Bur- 

 gess, participated in the conference, gave out a 

 statement afterward in which he declared it lo 

 he his conviction that the railroad men did not 

 know any more about the causes of congestion 

 than the lumbermen themselves. He further 

 said the object of tlic conference was lo prevent 

 a recurrence of conditions recently experienced 

 and that one of the remedies suggested l>y I lie 

 railroad men was "less hostility on the part "f 

 the people and their representatives in llu! va 

 rious legislatures." 



The car situation now shows marlced iiu- 

 provemcnt. For a time after the congestion first 

 began to disappear it was almost impossible t > 

 secure box cars for lumber shipments. In fact 

 lumbermen had to use flat cars and everything 

 elese they could get placed on their sidings. 

 Now they are obtaining a better supi>I.v of box 

 cars than for some time, thus relieving to some 

 extent the rather serious complaints from buyers 

 regarding the use of flat cars and the damage 

 to lumber thereon while in transit. The cotton 

 movement is running much lighter and this of 



itself is in some measure responsible for the bet- 

 ter ear situation. 



Heavy rains are reported for the entire Mem- 

 phis hardwood lumber producing area, and this 

 has interfered with both logging and milliiTg 

 operations, thus restricting the output of hard- 

 wood lumber below the recent average. Condi- 

 tions surrounding production had begun to get 

 rather favorable, but it is intimated that it may 

 take some days, even with fair weather, to get 

 production back up to the average reached prior 

 to the previous fortnight. 



There will be- a very large delegation of lum- 

 bermen from the Memphis club at the annual of 

 the National Hardwood Lumber Association at 

 Atlantic City, May 23-24. At the last meeting 

 a committee was appointed to look after trans- 

 portation arrangements, of which James E. Stark 

 is chairman. The Memphis delegation will wear 

 the same button which was worn during tlie 

 Memphis convention last year, bearing the em- 

 blem of the association and the word Memph's 

 in addition thereto. 



The publicity committee of the club, of which 

 George C. Ehemann is chairman, is now making 

 arrangements to secure a permanent gold lapr'l 

 button to he worn exclusively by members of the 

 Lumbermen's Club at home and abroad. The 

 idea is to advertise the city and give every mem- 

 ber of the organization some insignia of mem- 

 bership. The button is described by Mr. Ehe- 

 mann as an axe sunk into a stump. The initials 

 '"L. C." will be written across the axe and tlie 

 word "Memphis" will appear below. The mem- 

 bership of the club is now at the highest point 

 in the history of the organization, four new 

 members having been received at the last meet- 

 ing : W. C. Barneth. Ileth, Ark. ; Philip A. Ryan, 

 C. B. Willey and Frank B. O'Leary, all of Mem- 

 phis. 



The announcement of the Southern railway 

 that it will aliandon the proposed extension of 

 the Delta Southern, wliieh was intended to con- 

 nect Mempliis and Jackson. Miss., is regretted 

 by lumber interests of this section because it 

 was felt that this road would be an important 

 factor in the development of timber resources in 

 tlie section between Memphis and Jackson. The 

 Moljile & Ohio has declared its intention of 

 abandoning the construction of the branch linr^s 

 for tlic inirpose of developing the virgin forests 

 Iribntary to the road. Officials of llie Pine Bluff 

 North & South railroad, which plans to build a 

 line from Memphis to Shreveport, La., announc 

 that the contract has already been awarded for 

 the building of a 4i;-miie secthm from Pine Bluff 

 to Lonoke. Ark., where connection will be made 

 into Jlemphis over the Rock Island. On the 

 completion of this, which will reijuire about six 

 months, work will begin on tlie line from Pine 

 Bluff south to Shreveport. The Memphis divi- 

 sion will be the last constructed. The road is 

 backed altogether by Pine Bluff capitalists and 

 it is lieing built for the purpose of competing 

 with the St. Louis Soutliwestern (Cotton Belt I 

 and the St. Louis, Iron Mo\nitain & Southern, 

 which now handle all the traffic from Pine HlulT 

 and the surrounding territory. 



Hugh McLean of the Hugh .McLean Lumlpcr 

 Coiupnny, which operates a large liand mill in 

 tills city, has Ijciui here during llie past few 

 days looking after interests of the firm. His 

 lii'adciuarters arc at Buffalo. 



H(n-ace F. Taylor, another Buffalo lumberman, 

 member of the firm of Taylor & Crate, has been 

 circulating among local lumber interests during 

 the past few days. 



The Robert.son-Fo<ishe l.iunber Company will 

 make application within the next few- days for 

 a charier with a capital stock of $:5.000. The 

 company will engage in the manufacture jind 

 wholesale handling of hardwood lumber and 

 will have offices and yards at North Second 

 street and the Illinois Central railroad. The 

 officers of the company will he : F. B. Robert- 

 son, president; S. B. .\nderson, vice president; 



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