HARDWOOD RECORD 



27 



^President Taft's St. Patrick's Day 

 Conservation Talk 



Before a cheering audience that tilled the 

 Auditorium Theater, Chicago, to overflowing, 

 President Taft, on March 17, outlined his 

 program on the conservation of natural re- 

 sources, in a half-hour "talk," as he termed 

 it, but which proved a most important and 

 extensive utterance on the subject. The Presi- 

 dent made a strong plea for a law that will 

 validate immediately existing and future with- 

 drawals, under the President's order, of coal 

 lands, oil fields, watcrpower lands and phos- 

 phate beds from the public domain, so that 

 the governmeut may then, at its leisure, pro- 

 ceed to the solution of the conservation prob- 

 lem. 



The President outlined many of the diffi- 

 culties confronting the movement and the 

 remedies that have been suggested, and 

 toward the elo.se of his remarks took up the 

 " lakes-to-the-gulf " deep waterway project. 

 On this, he said, he is "still waiting to be 

 convinced, ' ' 



The meeting, which was one of the largest 

 conservation gatherings in the history of the 

 movement, was held under the auspices of 

 eighteen Chicago clubs with a membership of 

 12,000, and the Chicago committee of the 

 National Conservation Association. 



The President was loudly applauded 

 throughout his speech, the handclapping 

 amounting to almost a demonstration when 

 he mentioned former President Eoosevelt and 

 former Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot. 



"Mr. Roosevelt was inspired to this move- 

 ment by Gifford Pinchot," declared Mr. Taft. 

 ' ' I am in favor of giving credit where credit 

 belongs." This was the only alhision which 

 President Taft made during his speech to any 

 of the participants in the Ballinger-Pinchot 

 controversy. 



The reconmionilations made by the Presi- 

 dent were: 



Passage of a law validating withdrawals of 

 lands from the public domain on an executive 

 order, legalizing an existing custom. 



Retention by the government of such con- 

 trol in its coal and water power lands so that 

 it still maj- act as a director to prevent any 

 abuse. 



Passage of a law for the classification of 

 public lands. 



Development (pf a national health dejjart- 

 meut for the preservation of the health of 

 citizens. 



The difficulties with which the snpporlcrs 

 of the conservation movement still are 

 wrestling, as outlined by the President, were: 



Coal lands — How to dispose of them in a 

 way to attract investment and still retain for 

 the government control so that forty or fifty 

 years hence the government mav' resume pos- 

 session. 



Water power — How many years to let a 

 power for, when a readjustment ought to be 

 had, what kind of leases should be giv- 

 en and how royalties should be adjusted on 

 these and on coal lands. 



Phosphate lands — Proposition to keep them 



under the control of the goveniinent and to 

 see that the deposit shall have general distri- 

 bution at reasonable prices. 



' ' The most foolish landlord, ' ' said the 

 President, in driving home his points, "is the 

 gentleman with a big building, who gets an 

 enthusiastic tenant and shoves his rent up 

 so high that the next year the lease has gone 

 into the hands of a receiver," 



When the President took up tlie subject 

 of waterways he referred to the fact that 

 in 1(108 he, with William Jennings Bryan, 

 spoke in the Auditorium at the waterway 

 convention, and that last fall, to complete 

 his education, he took the trip down the Mis- 

 sissippi River to New Orleans. 



' ' I was waiting to be convinced — and 1 

 am still in that condition," he said. Going 

 into the subject deeper, the President pointed 

 out that water ways are useful instruments 

 in regulating exorbitant railroad rates, and 

 declared that whenever a river improvement 

 project has been examined by experts, its 

 cost reported, and it appears that it will 

 assist in regulating railroad rates and will 

 furnish transportation sufficient to justify the 

 investment, he is for the proposition. He 

 said that the Ohio Eiver is the only one meet- 

 ing these requirements, and after stating his 

 belief that the Missouri from Kansas City to 

 St. Louis and the Mississipi from St. Paul 

 to Cairo are capable of development, he hit 

 the "lakes-to-the-gulf" idea. 



' ' As to your fourteen-foot water way from 

 Chicago to the gulf," he said, "1 am waiting 

 to be convinced. There is in the present 

 bill a provision by which the matter is to be 

 submitted to engineers again. I hope I can 

 select impartial ones, and the whole subject 

 i-an be reconsidered, and then if the report 

 is favorable I am sure Congress will act on 

 it." 



Hardwood Record J\Ioil "Bag 



Material for Making Shoe Pegs Wanted 

 Vienna, Austria, March 10. — Editor Hakd- 

 wuoD Kecobd : We want addresses of manufac- 

 turers of wood for making shoe pegs, and if you 

 are able to give them to us we shall be much 

 indebted. — . 



The above inquiry comes from a foremost 

 importer of wood goods at Vienna, and if any 

 of the eastern subscribers to the Record en- 

 gaged in the production of maple or other 

 shoe peg billets are interested in a good for- 

 eign connection, they can have the address of 

 the above concern upon application. — Editor. 



nection, the address of the above concern will 

 be supplied on application, — Editor. 



Wants to Sell Osage Orange Timber 



LoCKLAND, O., Marcii 12. — Editor Hardwood 

 Kkcord : I have three hundred tine osage orange 

 trees which I would be glad to cut and sell to 

 an.vone interested in this wood. — V. H. Dunn, 

 Hox 2:i,">. I.ockland, Ohio. 



Seeking New Pencil Woods 



ICeci'nt ciMiIt-rciicc^ ut rciti-esentativos of the 

 .Agricultural Ucpartmcnt. wiib -ieveral Icad-peucii 

 manufacturers, havo resulted in plans for testing 

 new ^^■oods with a view 10 ascertaining whether 

 or not they arc suital'le tor the pencil industry. 

 Some of the manefacturei-s contend that the 

 suppl,\' of red cedar, wbicli now supplies pi*ac- 

 (ically all the material tor the 325,000,000 pen- 

 cils turned out every year, will be exhausted 

 within five years. A substitute fairly soft, with 

 a compact, straight, firm grain, few knots, and 

 capable of being easily wliittled, is in immediate 

 demand, and wood fulfilling these requirements 

 and orcurring in sutHcient quantities will very 

 shortly receive a tremendous boom. 



At the suggestion of the pencil makers, the 

 Forest Service will cooperate in tests of a num- 

 ber of the wood species growing on the national 

 forests, mainly conifers, such as Rocky Mountain 

 led cedar, alligator juniper, western Juniper, red- 

 wood, incense cedar, western cedar. Port Orford 

 cedar and .\Iaskan cypress. Specimens from the 

 national forests will be sent lo four leading 

 manufacturers, who have agreed to make pencils 

 of them and to record all tests and report same 

 to the Forest Service, as well as to submit their 

 own ideas and convictions as to the different 

 ^'oods. 



The vast quantities of this type of coniferous 

 trees found on the national reserves is a suffi- 

 lii'nt incentive for the service to render all pos- 

 sible assistance in this work. In the event of 

 iho adoption of any of the afore-mentioned woods 

 for this use, a definite and conservative policy 

 will be adopted by the government, with a view 

 to eliminating the possibility of a repetition of 

 thi' present shortage in pencil wood. 



Wants Oak Squares and Chair Back Stock 



Buffalo, N. Y., March 12. — Editor Hardwood 



Record : We want lists of manufacturers who 



are able to supply us 2x2 oak squares and 1x7- 



ISVj" quartered oak chair back stock. . 



If Hardwood Record clients who are able 

 to supply this stock want to make a good con- 



lufluence of Trade on the Car Supply 



Itepoits from the freight car bureau maintained 

 l.y the leading roads of the country since the 

 beginning of 1007 reveal various facts interest- 

 ing in connection with .a resume of trade condi- 

 tions during the period of its existence. 



\i th.c time at which the bureau was inaugu- 

 rated there was a period of serious car shortage 

 generally throughout the country. Tliis condi- 

 tion was remedied somewhat during the summer, 

 but in tbe late fall months, even with the three 

 hundred thousand new cars built during the year 

 in commission, the supply was even further be- 

 liiw the demand than previously, and so con- 

 tinued up to the days of the panic, when the 

 balance shifted to the other side, maintaining 

 that position until midsummer of 1909, when it 

 gradually crept back to the former position, with 

 the general opening of fall trade. 



Recovering again in December of that year, 

 an excess surplus of 25,000 over shortages was 

 reported, the shortages being usually local and 

 temporary and generally caused by inclement 

 weather conditions, and indications do not point 

 to any immediate repetition of the conditions 

 prevailing lata last fall. 



Till' iinusnally severe winter conditions have 

 been more or less offset by the fact that new 

 lolling stock is being delivered constantly, and 

 also by the increased size of cars and speed of 

 trains — a fact pointed out by the railroads, who 

 say that the cars arc doing more service per 

 car than ever before. The best figure for the 

 jcar was set in March, 1909, when each car re- 

 ported carried the equivalent of 49.'J Ions per 

 mile per day. 



