HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



cover from his slanderous talk concerning 



the greatest meeting ever held in the history 

 of lumber affairs. 



Saved His Life 



It may not l)e generally known tliat 

 (ieorge T. Mii-kle, head of the big yellow 

 |iinc concern, the George T. Mickle Lumber 

 < iinipany, Chamber of Commerce building, 

 (liicago, is a reformed newspaper man. 

 When Mr. Mickle was a lad he was em- 

 phjycd as a reporter on the old Minneapolis 

 Tribune. Having saved up a few dollars, 

 he spent a vacation in the little country 

 town in northern Illinois from which he had 

 emigrated. He found his old school-girl 

 iliums in the town glad to be entertained 

 by the "chap from the city," but his few 

 (bdlars soon melted away in buggy rides 

 .-ind attending the county fair. He had 

 the misfortune as a wind-up of his visit to 

 collide with a farmer's buggy while driving 

 with a couple of girls and smash two wheels 

 of the agriculturist's wagon. 



He acknowledged his fault and promised 

 tlie farmer he would settle the bill, but the 

 man of the soil wanted his mouey and want- 

 ed it quick, and after the lad had settled 

 he had but very little chicken feed left as 

 his share of the coin of the realm. 



Having previously provided himself with 

 a return ticket, Mickle immediately started 

 for Minneapolis. Night overtook him at a 



.junction point some two hundred miles from 

 the city, and he found himself penniless and 

 with an appetite that is possible only to 

 lads of sixteen. He wandered around the 

 bakery shojis and stare'd wistfully at the 

 Inuih ;nid pies displayed in the windows. 

 Finally he ventured into the hotel of the 

 town. Every minute his hunger became 

 more and more acute, and the thought of 

 sitting up in a day coach all night with 

 gnawing vitals got on his nerves. Finally 

 he discovered some copies of the paper on 

 whicli he was engaged as a reporter and 

 scraped up an acquaintance with the news 

 vender. The man was glad to see him, 

 having never before had a visit from any- 

 one connected with the great Minneapolis 

 newspaper for which he was agent. An ex- 

 pedient occurred to the lad, and he inci- 

 dentally asked the agent how his account 

 stood with the house. The man cheerfully 

 looked it up and confessed that he owed the 

 paper four dollars and thirty cents. Young 

 Miekle asked him if it would be convenient 

 to settle then and there, and the agent said 

 it would. 



In relating this incident, Mr. Mickle said 

 that if you ever saw a kid hustle into a din- 

 ing room and get his money's worth, it was 

 this starved lad from Minneapolis, and in 

 all his travels since that time he has never 

 enjoyed a Pullman berth as he did that 

 night. 



Mill Cost System 



G. O. WORLAND 



'ost accounting has long interest manifested 



The matter of 

 occupied the minds of the most successful 

 manufacturers in all lines, but it is a lament- 

 able fact that in the lumber business, particu- 

 larly in the manufacture of hardwoods, there 

 is but little thought given to the cost of pro- 

 duction. 



It is a fact, however, that the conditions 

 under which hardwood sawmills operate vary 

 to such an extent that the methods of one 

 plant might not prove of value to another, 

 but there is no reason why each plant can- 

 not figure the absolute cost of its lumber 

 in each state of its manufacture and market- 

 ing, from the stump to the final closing of 

 the customer's account. 



That there might be developed a general 

 uniform method of figuring these costs, with 

 sufficient elasticity to fit the individual con- 

 ditions as they may exist, a general compre- 

 hensive discussion of the matter at the re- 

 cent annual meeting of the Indiana Hardwood 

 Lumbermen's Association at Indianapolis was 

 hoped for. It was believed that such a dis- 

 cussion would bring out much information 

 that would be of benefit to every member and 

 that, as a result, much of the unintelligent 

 competition in the lumber trade might be 

 eliminated, and each operator made to real- 

 ize the advisability of running his business 

 only along those lines which show a profit. 

 It is to be regretted that there was not more 



this discussion ; 

 whether it was from lack of knowledge of 

 what was expected and unpreparedness of sta- 

 tistics for the purpose, or whether it was due 

 to unnecessary unwillingness to publish such 

 figures, it is difficult to ascertain. 



Speaking of this hesitancy to give out in- 

 formation, it is advisedly quoted : ' ' Your 

 good competitor is the intelligent one and he 

 is not going to harm you, and the sooner 

 you educate the unintelligent competitor who 

 is mistaken in figuring his costs, the sooner 

 he is going to stop his unwise competition, 

 either in the purchasing of raw material or 

 the selling of the finished product." If he 

 doesn't stop he is a fool and as a fool he 

 cannot last long in any business. 



The majority of mill men who have no 

 cost accounting system neglect this branch 

 of the business probably because they think 

 it complicated and expensive, when, as a 

 matter of fact, it can be made extremely sim- 

 ple and the time and expense reduced to 

 such a small item as to be negligible, while 

 endless ways of utilizing the knowledge ac- 

 quired, for the benefit of the business, soon 

 make themselves evident. Many successful 

 operators let the matter of profit and loss go 

 until the annual or semi-annual inventory, 

 and convince themselves that the profit is sat- 

 isfactory or if a loss occurs wonder where 

 their monev went to. They do not know what 



items were profitable and what were not and 

 oftentimes use the profits on one item to cover 

 the loss of another. 



The method used by our concern, making 

 a specialty of quartered oak, which buys its 

 logs from producers on the open market and 

 ships them by rail to the mill, is herewith 

 given, and may possibly be of interest to some 

 operators. 



The management of the business is divided 

 between three men. One looks after the log- 

 purchasing end; one selling and shipping, and 

 the other the operations and general manage- 

 ment. The general expense, which consists 

 of salaries, office and traveling expenses, is 

 L-harged one-third each to logs, manufacture 

 and selling. The one-third general expense 

 of the logging department is pro-rated per 

 thousand feet at intervals, and added to the 

 purchase price to which is also added 

 freight charges, and thus the log cost deliv- 

 ered on track at the mill is arrived at. 



The cost of manufacture is figured out each 

 week. First the overhead expense is estimated 

 as follows : 



One-third general expense .$ 03.00 



Interest 15.00 



Taxes 8.00 



Insurance 10,00 



Depreciation 40,00 



Maintenance and repairs 12,00 



Total $1.50.00 



To this is added the payroll which, divided 

 by the number of feet sawn, gives the cost of 

 sawing that week, paying the whole cost from 

 the time the logs are delivered or put on the' 

 track until the lumber is distributed in the 

 .yards for sticking. 



Eeeord of the daily cut is made on a chart 

 which is herewith shown, at the end of the 

 week. The weekly average is calculated, and 

 recorded on the same chart, and at the end 

 of thirteen weeks or one quarter the average 

 for that time is taken and record made, illus- 

 trating at a glance the variation in the day's 

 cut. 



The cost of manufacture at this plant for 

 the last six months of 1909, sixty per cent 

 of the cut being quartered oak, is as fol- 

 lows: Taking the logs from the car and 

 <iistributing the lumber in front of the piles 

 is $3.94 per thousand, of which labor was 

 $2.28, distribution 29 cents, and overhead ex- 

 pense $1.37. Cost of sticking, which is done 

 by contract, is 40 cents per thousand. 



The record of the loading expense is kept 

 on the reverse side of the yard order, and 

 runs 15 cents per thousand for 2-inch poplar 

 to $1 per thousand for mixed orders, strips, 

 etc., that have to be teamed to the car; the 

 average on all is 41 cents per thousand feet. 



The actual time of loading is kept by the 

 inspector who counts his time as equivalent 

 to that of two laborers and single horse and 

 wagon as equivalent to one, and reckons the 

 total at 15 cents per hour. Notation is also 

 made, showing any reason for high cost, such 

 as extra amount of degrades, mixing of 

 grades, etc., so that excessive cost in loading 

 can be noted at the time it occurs, and full 



