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HARDWOOD RECORD 



General Motors Company, a consolidation of a few automobile fac- 

 tories, liad appropriated a million dollars as a first installment of an 

 advertising campaign for the year to come. He also stated that 

 one Milwaukee brewery was spending a like sum for advertising its 

 product during the coming year. 



These are two extremes. In the case of the brewery doing a busi- 

 ness of five million dollars a year and spending a million dollars 

 for advertising, the buyer of this delectable beverage can readily 

 figure that when he pays five cents for his drink he is paying one 

 cent for having its surpassing qualities called to his attention, and 

 four cents for beer and the various costs and profits involved in 

 its distribution over bars or sideboards. 



In the case of the automobile game as at present carried on, he 

 can pretty safely figure that when he pays three thousand dollars 

 for an automobile he is paying fully one-half of this amount for 

 advertising and sales cost. In reality he is only getting fifteen 

 hundred dollars' worth of "buzz-buggy." 



Of the extreme case, the lumberman who has never found occasion 

 to spend a cent for advertising, it may be stated that he is about 

 as far behind the procession in advertising exploitation as the lager- 

 beer magnate and the automobile people are ahead of it. Sales costs 

 under modern methods are becoming a tremendous percentage in the 

 general costs of goods of all descriptions. Lumbermen generally are 

 learning something about the value of exploitation, but still the 

 average one is yet in the dark as to the possibilties of it when con- 

 servatively and logically carried out. 



The experience of the Record in this particular is far more 

 "spotted" than the present situation in hardwood sales. Men come 

 into this office and state frankly that the Becord earns ten thou-sand 

 dollars a year for them on a five hundred dollar investment, and the 

 very next man that discusses the subject will state with equal honesty 

 that he can not trace a dollar to advertising expenditure. 



There is a reason for this. 



The man who acknowledges a profit of ninety-five hundred dollars 

 on a five hundred dollar investment Ls a live-wire lumberman. Pri- 

 marily, he can ' ' deliver the goods, ' ' and knows how to forcefully 

 present the various items he has for sale on public attention. The 

 man who says that he is not getting returns out of his advertising 

 is the man who simply states that he is in the lumber business, 

 perhaps at "Big Ditch," Indiana. 



Today is the day of specific advertising. The old card form of 

 announcement is played out as a money-getter. By far the best and 

 most sensible advertisers in this country — the people who get the 

 best returns from their investments — is the dry goods trade. These 

 people advertise specific items they have for sale. It is no time 

 for glittering generalities in advertising, and it is the time for 

 specific announcements. If a man has but one car of No. 2 inch 

 chestnut for sale, if he will state that fact specifically, and present 

 it to the vast number of readers of Hardwood Record forcibly 

 enough and times enough, he will find a customer for it. 



The Record deprecates the big and unusually untruthful average 

 stock list sent out by many manufacturers and jobbers. These lists 

 impress on the minds of the buyer that the world is full of lumber 

 of certain kinds and qualities, when in truth it does not exist. 



The Record took occasion to recently "call" one of its pet adver- 

 tisers who conceived the scheme of advertising five million feet of 

 a certain gr?.de of lumber for sale when he didn't have fifty thousand 

 feet of it in l.:s possession, and in fact could not have secured the 

 quantity advertised at any reasonable price in a cruise of the entire 

 lumber-producing country. 



Advertising is all right and can be carried on at a manifest profit 

 to the average lumberman if he will pay a modicum of attention to 

 thi.s phase of the business that he does to other details of it, but the 

 Record frankly believes that the man who simply says "I am in 

 the lumber business at Big Ditch, Indiana," never can achieve good 

 results from his advertising expenditure. 



In this connection the Record would state to its present and pro- 

 spective advertising clients, that it would be very glad to suggest 

 lines of progressive exploitation that will bring returns if they will 

 cooperate with the advertising staff to this end. 



Opening Forest Products Laboratory 



Assistant Forester William L. Hall of the United States Forest 

 Service announces the opening of the Forest Products Laboratory 

 at Madison, Wis., on Saturdav', June 4. This laboratory is intended, 

 by means of experiments and demonstrations, to lessen waste in 

 the manufacture and use of wood. The state of Wisconsin has 

 erected a new building at the university for this purpose and will 

 provide light, heat and power. The Forest Service has supplied 

 the equipment and apparatus and will maintain a force of thirty- 

 five or forty persons to carry on the work. 



The laboratory will be prepared to make tests on the strength 

 and other properties of wood, to investigate processes of treating 

 timber to prevent destruction by decay and other causes, to study 

 the saving of wood waste by distillation, to examine the fiber of 

 various woods for paper and other purposes, and to determine the 

 relation of the microscopic structure of wood to its characteristics 

 and properties. Facilities will be at hand to make almost any kind 

 of test on wood that practical conditions may require. 



Lumber manufacturing and wood-using industries are invited 

 to make practical use of the laboratory in devising means of 

 reducing waste in wood — a subject of vital concern. Already many 

 have proposed experiments and supplied much test material, which 

 is waiting attention. 



The opening of the laboratory is expected to be a notable 

 event. Some thirty lumber organizations are arranging for repre- 

 sentation, and many prominent men of the lumber and wood-using 

 industries have advised that they will attend. There will be but 

 one session at which addresses will be given. Following this, an 

 inspection of the laboratory and its equipment will be made, with 

 demonstration work in progress. Only one day will be given over 

 to the exercises. 



An effort will be made to have a special train of sleeping cars 

 run from Chicago to Madison on the evening of June 3, and back 

 to Chicago on the evening of June 4, so that those who make use 

 of this train will require no hotel accommodations at Madison. 



Over-Stocking in Quartered Oak 



The increasing price of quartered white oak this year has led to the 

 inevitable overproduction. Today there is a manifest shortage in 

 plain-sawed oak in both red and white, while there is every evidence 

 of a weakening in the values on quartered stock. At best there is 

 only a limited demand for quartered oak, and wise operators will 

 curtail their quartered cut for at least a month to come, and give 

 more attention to the production of plain wood. 



Hickory Handle Manufacturers' Meeting 



An important meeting of the newly organized Hickory Handle 

 Manufacturers' Association will be held at the Gayoso Hotel, Mem- 

 phis, Tenn., on Thursday, May 26. T. R. Clendennin, president of 

 the association, and J. E. Duffield, secretary, are particularly anxious 

 that all liaudle manufacturers shall be present at this conference, as 

 matters of vast importance will be brought up and legislated upon. 



Forest Waste 



In the Delta country of Mississippi and Arkansas good authority 

 states that more red gum is being deadened and left to die in the 

 forests at this time for the purpose of preparing lands for agricul- 

 tural purposes than is actually being cut into logs and sawn into 

 lumber. This forest slaughter is deplorable. It is doubtful if there 

 is over 11,000,000,000 feet of red gum in existence at the present 

 time, and with its prospective value such devastation is shameful. 

 Even where red gum stumpage is being put into log product only the 

 best of the growth is being taken out, and the remainder is left for 

 fire and decay. Undeniably the average red gum operator is five 

 years ahead of the times in his attempt to get the best results out of 

 his stumpage, and every man who is slaughtering red gum today will 

 wake up within that time to find that he could have made ten times 

 as much money by conserving his timber. 



