12 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Necessary and Unnecessary Legislation. 



Congress is at present occupied in going tlirougli its usual 

 practice of playing polities rather than determining just legislation. 

 The country is promised a much-needed railroad rate bill. The 

 country may get it and may not. At least this bill is out of the way 

 until the Conference Committee shall make its report. Thi.s nation 

 ■ought to have the rate bill, but if Congress promptly enters upon its 

 appropriation campaign and makes a rush to adjourn, as is cus- 

 tomary, the people will have to get along without the rate bill for a 

 irhile. There are other bills that should be passed, notably the one 

 for reduction of duties on sugar and tobacco coming from the Philip- 

 pines. But apparently it is not good politics and will not be passed. 



There is a Senate bill in the House which is a just and righteous 

 one and which calls for prompt action. It is the pure food bill. 

 Legislation is surely needed, and there is a popular demand for it. 

 However, certain congressmen have discovered that it will not be 

 good politics to pass a pure food bill, and therefore it will prob- 

 ably die. 



The most foolish measure and the one which seems more likely to 

 pass than any mentioned is the bill to take the tax off alcohol 

 used for industrial purposes. An exploitation campaign has been 

 made for months in rural districts to instruct farmers that with the 

 tax off alcohol all the waste farm products can be made into this 

 liquid, which would mean a great deal to them. There is probably 

 but a modicum of truth in this statement, but it has been received 

 with popular acclaim, and members of Congress are urged to adopt 

 the measure. 



A few years ago there fell to' the lot of northern lumbermen a 

 large area of hardwood timber land, which, previous to the exhaus- 

 tion of white pine timber, was regarded so nearly valueless as to be 

 scarcely worth owning and paying taxes on. Lumber manufacturers 

 who had plants in northern Michigan, Wisconsin and extreme north- 

 eastern Jlinnesota, to which hardwood timber was contiguous, were 

 anxious to maintain their residence and means of livelihood in the 

 sections with which they were familiar. Serious study, comprehen- 

 sive experimentation and the highest approved methods combined, 

 showed conclusively that the lumber business per se, as previously 

 practiced in soft woods would not show a reasonable profit in the 

 manufacture of northern hardwoods. These lands showed from four 

 to ten thousand feet of hardwood timber per acre, interspersed with 

 hemlock. Unlike the old pine proposition, where the lands were 

 stripped comparatively clean, less than fifty per cent of the forest 

 was merchantable timber. For years this contingent of the lumber 

 trade exercised all the talent and ingenuity of which they were pos- 

 sessed to invent plans whereby the ofEal of the forests might be 

 utilized to place the business on a paying basis. Eventually they 

 struck upon the production of charcoal, wood alcohol and acetate 

 of lime. Today when the foremost manufacturers of Michigan and 

 Wisconsin produce a million feet of lumber they make at the same 

 time about five hundred cords of wood — almost an equivalent quan- 

 tity — which they charcoal, and from the gases and fluids produce 

 wood alcohol and acetate of lime. With this extension of the hard- 

 wood lumber industry of the North it has been placed upon a reason- 

 ably profitable basis, and many millions of dollars have been expended 

 in plants for the production of these by-products. These institu- 

 tions employ thousands of workmen. With a tax being continued on 

 grain alcohol a fair profit remains to manufacturers of northern 

 hardwoods. With free grain alcohol and the consequent lowering of 

 the value of bqth the grain and wood alcohol product it is more than 

 likely that the business would again be placed on an unprofitable 

 basis. The general contention that it is not wisdom to legislate so 

 that one industry is made possible only by the disruption of another 

 is true, and thus it would seem that there is no result of any value 

 to be obtained from the enactment of a free alcohol bill. 



If there is any measure this country needs it is legislation to 

 .promote forest economy to the complete utilization of forest products. 

 In a general way it may be stated that old methods of lumbering 

 have not insured in the form of merchantable commodities more than 

 thirty per cent of the standing timber. There can be but very little 

 •value in the free alcohol bill to the farmer, and it is a serious menace 



to the hardwood industry of this country as a whole. It is sincerely 

 to be hoped that the bill will fail. 



Ethics of Trade Journalism. 



Tell the truth when saying nothing is not kindlier. "It is the 

 wise newspaper man who knows what to leave out of his paper. ' ' 

 Warn the trade against impending evil, either in men or conditions, 

 but don 't tramp on a man after he 's down. 



Stick to your line, and what you do, do well. If a contemporary 

 develops a new field of work and handles it justly, don 't try to 

 steal Ms business from him. Don 't be a hog. 



Don't distribute half the papers you print to "prospective" ad- 

 vertisers free of charge. They 're a boomerang. Make a newspaper 

 worth while and the advertiser will chase you. 



Be as careful in admitting concerns to your advertising columns 

 as the conservative man is in his line of credits. A trade newspaper 

 cannot afford to accept business from advertisers of questionable 

 repute. 



Be original. Start something — but don 't start anything you can 't 

 finish. Be enterprising; be forceful; be just; be clain; and your 

 paper will be successful. 



Above all things, be honest — not because "honesty is the best 

 policy, ' ' but because it is the essence of common sense. 



Sawmilling in Japan. 



The Japanese are excellent carpenters, but have never undertaken 

 lumber operations on a very extensive scale. Eepresentatives of the 

 United States government in Japan allege that it would be possible 

 for Americans to establish sawmills on the Yalu to advantage, as 

 timber can be purchased from the authorities. The Japanese govern- 

 ment exercises a timber monopoly on that river. 



The demand for lumber in China is constantly increasing. The 

 imports of softwood into Shanghai and Tientsin alone amount to 

 about $350,000 gold annually. Native woods are never properly sea- 

 soned, for they are generally transported in the log and sawed as 

 needed for immediate use by primitive whip-saw methods. Large 

 mills operating at Yougampo or Antuny would be able to take ad- 

 vantage of low labor cost and of cheap transportation by junks, 

 which make the voyage to Tientsin or Chefoo in from five to ten 

 days. The consular agent furnishing the above information is of the 

 opinion that such an enterprise would not only supply a long-felt 

 want in China, but would be of undoubted profit to its owners. 



West Bound Hardwood Freight Rate. 



Even without a rate bill to enforce their just demands the hard- 

 wood lumbermen of the country should have no great difficulty in 

 demonstrating to the transcontinental freight lines that the rate of 

 eighty-five cents on hardwood lumber from Mississippi valley points 

 to the Pacific coast is not only out of proportion but is unjust. With 

 the passage of the pending rate bill doubtless there would not be the 

 least contention on the part of raOroads against reducing this rate, 

 and with it pending it is quite likely that at the forthcoming meet- 

 ing of the Transcontinental Freight Association Committee at Chi- 

 cago on June 4 they will deem it wise to seriously consider the claims 

 of hardwood manufacturers and make some concession in the cur- 

 rent rate. 



The hardwood growth of the Pacific coast is so meager as to 

 amount to almost nothing, and with the popular tendency to finish 

 commercial and home buildings in hardwoods and to use hardwood 

 floors it would seem logical that therailroads should try to encourage 

 the shipment of hardwood lumber from the middle West and South 

 to the Pacific coast, rather than permit these commodities to be 

 imported from Australia and the Orient. 



Committees from the National Lumber Manufacturers ' Associa- 

 tion, the ^'isconsin Hardwood Lumbermen 's Association, the Hard- 

 wood Manufacturers ' Association of the United States, and the i 

 National Hardwood Lumber Association will all attempt to get a I 

 hearing before this freight committee and present their claims for 

 reduction of the eighty-five cent rate. 



