20 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Evolution of Hardwood Merchandizing 



Hardwood Kelord is in receipt of a letter I'lom a leailiiig hardwood 

 jobbing liouse which says : ' ' We have read with a great deal of 

 interest your editorial entitled 'Tertium Quid' in Hardwood Record 

 of December 25, which involves a new and conflicting element in 

 hardwood grading affairs, i. e. : that the re-manufacturer or consumer 

 of hardwood lumber shall participate in the formation of rules of 

 inspection under which hardwoods should be classified. What we 

 want to know is this: What position will the jobber be in if this 

 proposal should take effect? Are we not in difficulties enough now 

 without letting the consumer have a hand in grade-making? I be- 

 lieve that Palmer is right when he says that 'any attempt to draw 

 the consumer into the grade-making business will muss things up. ' 

 Year by year it is getting more diiEcult for the hardwood jobber to 

 make a reasonable profit in his business, and this new departure if 

 it should come about would, to my mind, put him on the shelf 

 entirely. ' ' 



The editorial referred to recited: 



First: That when the hardwood business assumed importance the 

 jobbing element took control of 

 inspection matters and dominated 

 the classification of hardwood 

 lumber for some years thereafter. 



Second : That about ten years 

 ago hardwood manufacturers in- 

 terested themselves in the sub- 

 ject and with or without the job- 

 bing element have had consider- 

 able to do with the making of 

 inspection rules since that time. 



Third: That latterly remanu- 

 faeturers of hardwood lumber, 

 people making furniture, wagons, 

 automobile bodies, coffins and 

 kindred lines, are insisting that 

 the present and somewhat con- 

 flicting rules of hardwood inspec- 

 tion do not provide for grades 

 that best suit their requirements, 

 and are quite generally demand- 

 ing that they shall have a hand 

 in basic grade-making. 



Fourth: There were recited 

 the opinions of Earl Palmer of 

 Paducah, Ky., E. H. Vansant of 

 Ashland. Ky., and W. A. Bennett 

 of Cincinnati, O.. on this subject. 



Fifth: If is the contention of tlie Record that tlie specific rules 

 co^'ering the inspection of hardwood lumber are of minor importance 

 to all elements of the trade if these rules reasonably accommodate 

 themselves to the present output of hardwood logs, and the grades 

 reasonably fulfil the requirements for the eventual use to which the 

 lumber is put ; and further that hardwood lumber should be divided 

 into grades to best suit the requirements of the eventual user; that 

 based on modern business methods, present hardwood inspection is 

 crude, involved, out-of-date and illy adapted to present-day econom- 

 ical utilization. 



Sixth: A system of grading was suggested that should multijdy 

 the gi'ades to a considerable extent, and better suit the specific require- 

 ments of eventual utilization. 



The Record was very glad to receive the letter above referred to, 

 and just now it may be pertinent to analyze more fully the history 

 and present status of hardwood inspection matters. Formerly lumber 

 exchanges, in the chief commercial centers of the country, formulated 

 sundry rules for the inspection of hardwood lumber. These rules 

 were made almost exclusively by the merchandising element of the 

 trade and differed in details in as many ways as there were exchanges. 



Tlie first concerted attempt to make a set of universal hardwood 

 rules came about in Chicago some thirteen years ago when the National 



For the New Year 



RESOLVED, That I rvill not lie to mysdj : I 

 will not call revenge justice, nor sin weakness, when 

 I hug them to mp heart. 



RESOLVED, That I will not steal from any- 

 one his confidence and faith in others, nor from 

 myself mj; self-respect. 



RESOLVED, That I will covet no ones hap- 

 piness, for 1 know that love and hate will be mine 

 in just the proportion I mete them out to others. 



RESOLVED, That I will not murder the 

 pleasant passing hours by useless regret over the 

 past that even Omnipotence cannot change. 



RESOLVED, Thai I will ^eep holy every day, 

 because I will devote it to work and to truth. 



—THE WOMAN BEAUTIFUL. 



Hardwood Lumber Association was formed. This was a new organi- 

 zation made up primarily of the jobbing element, and was dominated 

 by Chicago dealers. 



The original idea of the inspection rules of this association was 

 to establish a system of inspection to standardize transactions between 

 mauufacturers and jobbers, and it was distinctly not the intention 

 that the rules should govern the finer manipulation of lumber into 

 yard grades sold to consumers. Gradually, such a turmoil was raised 

 over the allegation that jobbeis bought on one grade and sold to 

 consumers on another, that by general consent and understanding 

 the rules were made to apply to all lumber transactions. 



As the years have gone by, this development placed the hardwood 

 merchants in rather an unenviable position. The large manufacturers 

 who formerly sold their lumber as "good, common and cidl" to the 

 jobbers went into the finer manipulation of stock as provided for 

 by the rules, and sold direct to the wholesale consuming trade. Thus 

 it is that the jobbing element has been obliged to fight for trade that 

 formerly was entirely their own against manufacturing concerns of 

 large capital who found it quite as easy to make specific grades and 



market their product direct as to 



ilo so through the jobbers. It has 

 come about that the jobbing ele- 

 ment has been wedged in between 

 the "devil and the deep sea." 

 The strong competition of manu- 

 facturers selling lumber in car- 

 load, and often less than carload 

 lots, to concerns who were for- 

 merly considered customers only 

 of the merchants, has played 

 liavoc with a large proportion of 

 the jobbing trade. 



This system of doing business 

 has worked around to a condition 

 where the profits of the mer- 

 chants have been cut to a point 

 that has left little margin in their 

 transactions. In some instances 

 a certain element in the jobbing 

 trade has succeeded in making 

 fair profits by dint of evasions 

 of the inspection rules, and in 

 some isolated cases by short 

 measurement and other irregular 

 practices, but beyond question 

 the profits of the jobbers on an 

 ■ ' up-and-up ' ' and square busi- 

 ness basis have been reduced to \ery small margins. The peoide 

 who have been making any considerable money in the jobbing trade 

 for some years have resorted to the making of "special grades" in 

 order to provide lumber at a price and of a quality that would suit 

 the eventual user. They have been obliged to evade the specific 

 grading systems supposed to be in general use. This is the truth 

 covering the situation. 



There can be no logical argument presented against manufacturers 

 of hardwood lumber becoming merchants as well as manufacturers if 

 they choose to assort lumber into many specific grades and to pay 

 the added cost of establishing and maintaining competent sales de- 

 partments of their business to handle the wholesale consuming trade. 

 On the other hand, there is a feeling on the part of many competent 

 and financially responsible hardwood merchants that the manufacturers 

 are not at all times playing the game fairly. The jobbers feel that 

 they have an established trade. They invest their money in stocks 

 of lumber, and they should be protected in their trade, especially 

 when in many cases it is a demonstrable fact that manufacturers can 

 secure better financial results by dealing through the jobber than 

 by selling direct to a scattered and small trade with which they are 

 not familiar. 



In the minds of many intelligent hardwood lumbermen the time 



