HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



and shippers on raany rivers cry for them. Yet the inland water- 

 ways campaign is where it was two years ago. 



At the end of the report Senator Newlands, who was chiefly 

 responsible for the passage of the reclamation act in the senate, 

 submitted a supplementary report which foretold this delay and 

 proposed that a committee of experts be empowered to select 

 definite projects to be worked out in accordance with a compre- 

 tensive plan. 



What has been done so far in conservation in the United States 

 has been done by the Forest Service, the Geological Survey and 

 the Eeclamation Service. A Waterways Service, such as Senator 

 Newlands proposed, is necessary before any satisfactory beginning 

 can be made. Until some such comprehensive plan is made the 

 continuation of the work on the rivers by the government under 

 the "pork barrel" system is a criminal waste of money. 



Year after year Congress has appropriated millions of dollars to 

 improve the navigation of the rivers, and year after year the 

 navigation of the rivers has decreased. A commission which under- 

 stands the laws of tratfie as well as the engineering problems, which 

 can put its finger on the present trouble, and show the remedy, 

 might make our rivers well regulated carriers of heavy commerce 

 from the interior to the sea, and perhaps still more important, pre- 

 vent floods. Today the great rivers of the country destroy more 

 property than they carry, and under their present handling will 

 continue to do so. 



The same delay in conservation progress is duplicated in the ease 

 of the verj' necessary Appalachian forest reserve. At the north- 

 west corner of Georgia, near the North Carolina line, three great 

 rivers have their sources, within rifle-shot of one another, the 

 Savannah, the Chattahoochee and the Tennessee. The headwaters 

 of half the streams of the United States are in the Appalachian 

 mountains in a 'comparatively limited area in which there are few 

 vested interests of large capital, and these watersheds are pro- 

 tected by the only large body of hardwood forest that is left. The 

 project to make an Appalachian park reserve, so necessary for 

 economic reasons alone, can be chargeable strictly to Speaker Can- 

 non's opposition during the last Congress, and now practically has 

 dropped completely out of official sight. 



When will the spirit of modern progress, rather than of modern 

 plunder, ever overtake the legislators at the nation's capital? 



The Enterprise of Memphis 



The business men of .Memphis, through their commercial clubs. 

 are fully aware of the possibilities of increasing the tremendous 

 business momentum that that city now enjoys. Tliese clubs are 

 now making an effort to raise $50,000 to be employed in advertising 

 Memphis. There are many good reasons why manufacturing indus- 

 tries, in which hardwoods enter largely, should locate in this pro- 

 gressive city of the Middle South. 



Primarily, there are now thirty-five sawmills in operation in that 

 city and five hundred more within a short distance. Seven new 

 sawmills are being located or rebuilt at Memphis at this time. 

 The city is in the heart of the great forest area of the Mississippi 

 valley, where gum and Cottonwood grow ; where oak is at its best ; 

 where there is splendid white ash, hickory, elm and cypress. 



Memphis is a prosperous and growing city. It has the metro- 

 politan airs of New York; it has the Lumbermen's Club of one 

 hundred and thirty-five members, and a Business Men's Club of a 

 thousand members, and these are the organizations that are desir- 

 ous of spreading the fame of Memphis and bringing the world to 

 its feet. 



Two of the members of the Publicity Committed of the Memphis 

 clubs are the well-known lumbermen, S. B. Anderson of the Ander- 

 son-Tully Company and W. 11. Russe of Eusse & Burgess, Inc. 

 Either one of these gentlemen will be glad to put manufacturers in 

 touch with good locations at Memphis, with an assurance of 

 friendly cooperation on the part of business men to carry on their 

 various enterprises with success. 



Memphis is a good place to live. It has strong financial insti- 



tutions^ capable of taking care of business needs. Its bankers are 

 well acquainted with the standing of lumbermen and woodworkers 

 generally in the business world, and are anxious to have such men 

 locate in Memphis, as they know they make good depositors as 

 well as safe borrowers. 



The geographical position of Memphis makes it a remarkably 

 desirable location for either the lumber manufacturer or the 

 remanufacturer of hardwoods of nearly all types. It is the hub 

 of a wheel, embracing Chicago, distant five hundred miles; St. 

 4 Louis, three hundred miles; Kansas City, four hundred miles; New 

 Orleans, four hundred miles; Dallas, five hundred miles; Mobile, 

 four hundred miles; Atlanta, six hundred miles; Knoxville, four' 

 hundred miles; Louisville, four hundred miles; Cincinnati, five hun- 

 di'ed miles, and Indianapolis, four hundred miles. 



This location insures very desirable rail freight rates to all cen- 

 ters of consumption, and with the prospective improvement of tlie 

 waterways of the country, Memphis should eventually become the 

 Chicago of the South commercially. 



Editorial Notes 



The Pooh-Bah of Paducah is credited with the assertion that if 

 it hadn't been for the lumber trade newspapers universal hard- 

 wood inspection would have been an accomplished fact long l;efore 

 this. Which is reminiscent of the cry of the nimble-fingered gent 

 who scurries down the street upon the discovery that a watch is 

 missing. » • • 



The movement inspired by President Brown of the Chicago 

 Hardwood Lumber Exchange to form out of the three lumber 

 organizations of this city one great association of lumbermen is 

 looked upon with favor by the majority of the lumbermen of Chi- 

 cago. Logically carried out, it undeniably will be the best move 

 that the lumber trade of this great central market ever made. 

 As was stated at the meeting of the Chicago Hardwood Lumber 

 Exchange a few days ago, Chicago directly handles mure than 

 two and a half billion feet of lumber annually. This, in combina- 

 tion with the various lumber enterprises in various parts of the 

 country handled by Chicago brains and capital would make the 

 aggregate of Chicago lumber handling fully five billion feet each 

 year. It is high time that these men get together on a strong 

 business alliance and help each other, as is possible to do when they 



are all combined with a common interest. 



* # * 



Cincinnati is evidently trying to become the host of all the 

 lumbermen in the country. For more than two months past it has 

 either been getting ready to entertain visiting lumbermen, or doing 

 its best to entertain them. The lumbermen of that city have 

 succeeded most admirably, and now they of the Queen City are get- 

 ting down to "brass tacks" and business. The hardwood men of 

 that city have awakened to the value of CO-OPERATION — and 



notice that the word is all spelled in capitals. 



* « « 



An example of the current conditions in poplar values in Great 

 Britain and Detroit was manifested recentlj- when a wise Cleve- 

 land jobber made a considerable purchase of poplar panel boards at 

 Liverpool, and reshipped the lumber across the ocean and to 

 Detroit, Mich., and made a profit of five dollars a thousand. This 

 is surely "going some" on distances for lumber transportation, 



but then poplar is popular in the big Wolverine city. 



* * * 



Endorsement of the report "of the Hardwood Inspection Com- 

 mittee of the National Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association of 

 a demand for universal hardwood inspection, means another step 

 toward this desideratum. This association has successfully handled 

 out more vexatious problems than universal hardwood inspection, 

 and who knows but it will assist in establishing that. More power 

 to it! » » • 



Reports from several export centers of this country are indicative 

 of very little or no improvement in lumber export conditions. The 

 lumber business in both Great Britain and on the Continent is not 

 nearly so good as it is here, but exporters are inclined to the belief 

 that improved conditions will surely prevail before long. 



