HARDWOOD RECORD 



17 



good stock as they now buy in the form of lumber. In this way 

 they will raise the standard of the materials they purchase to as 

 high a point of excellence as they can afford to pay for. 



On the other hand, it is up to the hardwood lumbermen to study 

 the requirements of the remanufacturers and to learn a good deal 

 more about the details of the cut-up table than they have known in 

 the past. They must learn to establish relatively all sizes and the 

 proportion of these sizes which are in greatest demand. They must 

 needs learn that they will be able to secure very little be3-ond labor 

 cost out of their small squares, and that they can get a fancy price 

 for materials suitable to make five-foot quartered oak table tops, 

 full length casings, door rails and baseboards. 



Freights alone make a great leeway of profit between shipping 

 hardwoods containing from twenty-five to fifty per cent of waste 

 material a distance of from 100 to 1,000 miles, and the shipment 

 of the clear stock from this material. 



Therefore, as a deduction from the foregoing, the Record insists 

 that the dimension business is the logical evolution of hardwood 

 lumber manufacture conducted at long distances from points of 

 consumption, and that it is the only way in which a reasonable 

 profit can be secured from lumber manufacture at these remote 

 points. It insists further that it is perfectly feasible for leading 

 manufacturers of furniture, interior finish and kindred lines to 

 establish and standardize sizes to the end that a manufacturer will 

 be able to produce them in quantities, knowing that there is an 

 established market not only with one, but with a hundred and very 

 likely a thousand users of the material. 



Lumber Trade Ethics 



The daily press a few days ago quoted August Belmont as stat- 

 ing: "We all used to rejoice in an Uncle Sam who was honest, 

 fearless, self-reliant — a fine old chap. * * * No truthful cartoon 

 of Uncle Sam of this day could present such a figure as that * * » 

 he would be supplanted by cunning, suspicion and withal a certain 

 sycophancy denoting deterioration of independent manhood." 



Mr. Belmont 's strictures are scarcely justifiable by the facts. 

 Uncle Sam, as the embodiment of the American citizen, of the 

 American business man, of the American lumberman, cannot justly 

 be epitomized by cunning, suspicion and sycophancy, or any other 

 untoward characteristic indicative of either mental or moral 

 deterioratiou. Independent manhood is just as prevalent and as 

 sincerely appreciated in this country todaj- as it ever was. Certaiu 

 elements of the business public occasionally "slip from their moor- 

 ings," but they are very properly and promptly "called" by their 

 confreres. The man who is too smart to be quite honest has a 

 hard road to hoe in this country; whatsoever his inclinations may 

 be toward wrong doing, his common sense usually leads him out of 

 the devious by-ways of commercial cunning and sycophancy to 

 the straight and true road of commercial integrity and common 

 sense. The oversmart man has no show on earth in this country 

 against the straightforward, upright business man. 



Look over the history of the hardwood lumber business for the 

 last few years. The man who has achieved a reputa-tion for salting 

 grades, for raising his measurement, for selling one thing and 

 delivering another, or for any other specious practice either has a 

 sheriff on his front steps or is mighty close to that unenviable 

 position. The Eecobd contends that the morals of the men engaged 

 in the lumber trade in common with that of nearly every other line 

 of American business are very much better than they were ten 

 years ago, and infinitely better than they were twenty years ago. 

 Practical business men very soon grasp the situation when any 

 of their associates in the trade attempt to "do" them, and there 

 is such a ban put upon this class that their business very soon goes 

 into the same decay as have their morals. 



Every prominent business calling of the day has its associations, 

 and to these associations may be attributed very largely the im- 

 proved standard of commercial morals that prevail todaj'. These 

 organizations are not only extending a good business education to 



their members, bvit withal they are infusing into their members a 

 spirit of commercial integrity and business ethics that is a vast 

 benefit not only to themselves but to the entire trade which they 

 represent. 



The spirit of commercial and moral evolution in the lumber trade 

 is going forward very fast. It is manifest in Chicago, in Cincin- 

 nati, in St. Louis, in Memphis, in Buffalo, in Pittsburg and all the 

 cities of the East. Where there were hundreds of "sharks" in the 

 hardwood business of these commercial centers ten years ago, it 

 is doubtful if it is necessary today to put the commercial ban on 

 twenty-five, and the career of this small number is nearly at an 

 end. 



Woods, Sawmill and Planing Mill Waste 



The utilization of woods, sawmill and planing mill waste is 

 attracting more attention today than ever before in the history of 

 the lumber business. When one considers that a close estimate 

 shows that not more than ten per cent of the hickory in the forest 

 goes into eventual utilization; that scarcely more than half of an 

 oak tree ever enters into a piece of furniture, and so on all through 

 the line, it becomes an interesting subject of economic discussion. 



Some of the northern hardwood operators are getting fair returns 

 out of the production of charcoal, wood alcohol and acetate of lime 

 from their woods refuse; in the South, the turpentine still secures 

 no inconsiderable monetary results from the stumps and refuse of 

 the yellow pine forest; in the chestnut regions a small profit is 

 obtained from the conversion of chestnut woods refuse into acid 

 wood which is converted into tanning material. The only forest 

 material unsuited for lumber production that is utilized closely is 

 spruce (and to a small extent hemlock), which goes into paper pulp 

 at a value nearly equal to that of the larger saw timber. Today, 

 outside -of a small production of dimension material, there is little 

 utilization made of the woods waste of oak, poplar, hickory, 

 cypress, gum, ash and several other woods. 



In some sawmill and planing mill centers located in towns and 

 cities mill offal has some value for fuel, horse bedding, crating and 

 packing material, but the profit on the handling is so slight that it 

 shows but little in the general aggregate above the cost of 

 liandling. 



As an example of utilization,' one prominent Cincinnati remanu- 

 faeturing house is securing fair profits from its cuttings, sawdust 

 and shavings by carefully rehandling and sorting the materials. 

 The clippings are put through a hog and reduced to shredded wood, 

 which is sold to railroads and owners of varied steam plants to 

 be mixed with oil or slack coal for fuel. The shavings are baled 

 and sold for horse bedding and packing. The sawdust is sorted 

 into soft woods and hardwoods, sifted, and sold for packing ma- 

 terial and other purposes. This plan shows a small profit, but in 

 a strict sense of the word it hardly seems to be the logical solution 

 of wood waste utilization. To a small extent sawdust and wood 

 chips are pulped and form the basis of sundry forms of composition 

 lumber that make but a very slight inroad into the vast quantity 

 of wood material that now rots on the ground or is consumed in 

 the forest slashing fire. Beyond doubt some inventive genius will 

 eventually evolve a system: of making wood waste the basis of a 

 material that will take the place of lumber for many purposes, but 

 that time has not yet come. 



Suspension of Government Monthly Price Lists 



Under date of October 15, Gifford Pinchot, head of the Forest 

 Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, an- 

 nounces that with the current issue of the record of wholesale 

 lumber prices, the publication will cease as a monthly record, ^ 

 and that the next issue will be a quarterly one, the first to be 

 published in January, 1910. 



If Mr. Pinchot will make one more change and publish this 

 price list as an annual, it probably will meet the full approval 

 of the manufacturing, jobbing, and consuming lumber trade of 

 the eountrv. 



