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HARDWOOD RECORD 



A Lumberman's Letters to His Son. 



Chicago, April 20. 



My Deak Son: I have no wish to preaclj 

 to you or load you down with advice, for I 

 know that one's own experience is more valu- 

 able to him than advice based on the ex- 

 periences of his elders. This Arkansas tim- 

 ber and sawmill is a mighty good proposition 

 if it is carried out with even a moderate 

 amount of good sense. I propose to make 

 you responsible for the success of the deal. 

 At the same time, I want to suggest to you 

 some features of logical sawmill operation, 

 to be carefully considered- by you before you 

 act differently. 



This mill we are putting up down there is 

 supposed to have a normal capacity of 45,000 

 feet of lumber a day on the class of logs 

 ■we have. 1 believe that guarantee can be 

 made good and that the mill will actually 

 cut that quantity of lumber in the time 

 named. However, I think it would be a mis- 

 take to ever cut over 25,000 feet a day. This' 

 strife for ' ' tonnage ' ' may be all right in 

 some lines of trade, but it is not right in 

 the sawmill business. jfou can make more 

 ■ money sawing 25,000 feet of lumber a day, 

 and doing it well, than you can by making 

 twice that amount of indifferently manu- 

 factured stock. 



Sawing miscellaneous hardwoods is a dif- 

 ferent proposition from cutting hemlock or 

 small yellow pine logs. In that class of lum- 

 ber you can pretty nearly take one log as 

 a sample and cut them all alike. In hard- 

 woods every log is an individual problem, 

 and to achieve the best results the sawyer 

 must be given time to carefully analyze them, 

 log by log. 



Again, it won 't do to crowd an edger on 

 hardwoods. Even a good edgerman can waste 

 enough stock, if overloaded, to pay the wages 

 of an entire sawmill crew. On the contrary, 

 if he has time to stop and figure out how to 

 get his saw kerf largely out of wane in place 

 of clean stock, he can earn a lot of money. 

 It is the same thing on the trimmer — speed 

 means waste every time. I therefore say to 

 you, don 't cut a log a day more than you can 

 have sawed, edged and trimmed to attain the 

 best possible results. 



When you get out into the yard work I 

 want to warn you not to spoil lumber after 

 you have made it. See that your foundations 

 for lumber piles are substantial, of sufficient 

 number, and lined up with absolute accuracy. 

 Don 't be afraid of pitch in your piles, and 

 don 't pile gum with less than a twenty-inch 

 pitch, in a sixteen-foot pile, with dry stickers 

 not more than three feet apart. Build your 

 piles narrow, largeiy separating widths and 

 entirely separating lengths and thicknesses. 

 Give plenty oi air space between boards and 

 between piles. See that the bottoms of your 

 piles are well up from the ground with lots 

 of air space below. Be particular about your 

 piling ground; select the highest, dryest place 

 available. 



In short, don't take good saw logs and 

 make bad lumber; don't take good lumber 

 and spoil it by bad yarding. 



Your affectionate Father. 



P. S. — No, you can't have a young lady 

 stenographer. An Arkansas sawmill is no 

 place for such sensitive creatures. You will 

 have to get along with a young man. 



Hardwoods Used in Organ 'Building. 



Some interesting facts relative to the 

 selection and use of woods for pipe organs 

 may bo noted by a visit to the mill of a reli- 

 able pipe organ maker. Nearly all of these 

 instruments are made to order, and the cus- 

 tomer specifies the kind of wood to be used. 

 Pipe organs usually go into ehufches, and 

 so most frequently are made to correspond 

 with their interior finishings. Very often 

 a sample of the wood in which the building 

 is finished is sent to the factory to be 

 matche.l in the organ vroodwork. 



Occasionally an order is sent in calling for 

 a walnut case, but the price of black walnut 

 is very high, especially in the grades which 

 are required for this work. No grades of 

 any wood except firsts and seconds ever go 

 into a pipe organ. Very rarely, also, are 

 cherry cases made, although they are invari- 

 ably very handsome. Red birch, which the 

 factories buy in Michigan and Wisconsin, is 

 now very popular, and in its natural state, 

 with only a coat of varnish, is most beauti- 

 ful. This same wood, with a mahogany 

 stain, is used for the so-called "mahogan- 

 ized" cases, and is indeed a fine substitute 



for mahogany, scarcely being excelled in 

 appearance by that wood itself. For the 

 general run of orders, however, quarter- 

 sawed oak is the popular finish. A panel of 

 this wood, picked up where an organ case 

 was in process of construction, proved to be 

 a thin poplar hoard with a veneer of quar- 

 ter-sawed oak on both sides, although only 

 one of them was to be exposed to view. 

 This is done to prevent cracking or warping. 

 Another case was entirely of poplar, and 

 was made in an unusual design, with Gre- 

 cian columns and grille work. It was to be 

 filled with shellac filler, and then covered 

 with heavy white enamel, and shipped to a 

 handsome summer residence being built at 

 Lake Geneva. 



• An organ case is evidently not made with 

 any more care, or any differently treated, 

 than a piece of high-grade furniture, except, 

 as above stated, that only the two best 

 grades of lumber are used in its construc- 

 tion. Perhaps a little more attention is paid 

 to the drying of the stock, however. It 

 must be left in the yards for at least a year, 

 preferably longer. It is then put into the 



factory's kilns and kept there two weeks, 

 commencing with a temperature of 125° 

 and gradually increasing the heat. Cases 

 are all put together with tenons, dowels 

 and glue; no nails or screws are ever used. 



The wood which enters into the working 

 parts of an organ is even more carefully 

 selected than that for the case. Carrying 

 as it does, the most delicate adjustments, 

 and going into all ranges of climatic condi- 

 tions, and very often into ignorant and care- 

 less hands, the organ proper must be most 

 carefully constructed. The customer some- 

 times claims the right to select the wood 

 for the inside, as well as for the case, and 

 it may be either pine, basswood or poplar. 

 If the choice be left to the organ builder the 

 latter wood is chosen as the most suitable. 



For the mechanism of the instrument the 

 lumber is never kiln dried. After seasoning 

 in the yard one or tw'O years, it is taken into 

 the warm stock room of the factory and 

 kept there six months or more before being 

 used. In this way it is better "acclimated," 

 so to speak, and less likely to be aft'ected by 

 atmospheric conditions. The working parts 

 of the organ are also treated vrith shellac 

 filler, and then given a' coat of varnish. 



Pipe Dreams from Mexico. 



William E. Curtis, the prolific writer on 

 the wonders he encounters in all parts of the 

 world, has been recently traveling in Mex- 

 ico, and has become the victim of the local 

 voracious chronicler. He says that worn out 

 steel rails are used for telegraph poles down 

 in the Tehuautepec country, with a couple 

 of holes drilled at the top so that wooden 

 cross bars can be fastened on. He alleges 

 that it is impractical to use wooden poles 

 because the soil is so rich that they take 

 root and grow, oven if the pole be of sea- 

 soned wood. Mr. Curtis' informant tells 

 him that the surveyors of railroads down in 

 that country have a great deal of trouble 

 w'ith the wooden stakes which they drive to 

 mark the right of way, because they blossom 

 like the rod of Moses. He alleges that the 

 fences along the railroads, used to support 

 fence wire, are all flowering hedges. Dip- 

 ping further into the marvels of Mexican 

 forest growth, he tells of the Arbor diaboli, 

 the octopus of trees, which has an extra- 

 ordinary way of coiling up its twigs and 

 seizing birds and animals which are unfor- 

 tunate enough to select it as a resting place. 

 He alleges that if a stone or piece of wood 

 or other object of bulk or weight be laid 

 upon one of the branches, it will be seized 

 in the same way by this wonderful tree, and 

 the limbs will twine about it and hold it 

 there indefinitely. He claims that no man 

 can climb the tree without becoming fatally 

 enmeshed in its branches. 



The Hardwood Lumber & Mining Company has 

 been organized with $50,000 capital at Roanoke, 

 Va., to cut timber from a 0,000-acre tract of 

 hardwood timber land in Bland county, Vir- 

 ginia. The officers are : R. H. Angell, president, 

 Roanoke ; C. L. Bush, treasurer, Roanoke ; B. F. 

 Johnson, Jr., secretary. Narrows. 



