HARDWOOD RECORD 



47 



AITDMctlSILE I'ANEL STOCK, THE rREMU:i; riillDUCT OF THE YELLOW I'OPLAU LIMBEH COMrANY. 



able holflings of this material during the entire year. The lumber 

 is loaded practically from the saw into cars and the demand is far 

 in excess of the car load a day that is shipped by the company on 

 contract. While poplar panel automobile stock is the highest priced 

 and most valuable product of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, it 

 can be seen from the amount of daily production that it constitutes 

 but a comparatively small percentage of the total output. 



The splendid quality of upper Big Sandy poplar timber, which 

 is the exclusive source of supply of the Yellow Poplar Lumber 

 Company, produces a percentage of surface clear stock that is 

 exceptional, and therefore in lesser widths the company has a large 

 output of good lumber, while its percentage of coarse end ranges 

 probably much lower than that of any other poplar manufacturing 

 house. 



The notable feature of the entire operations of the Yellow Poplar 

 Lumber Company is the infinite pains taken in every detail of the 

 manufacture of its product. As before noted extreme skill is exer- 

 cised in the manufacture of every log. Great care is exercised in 

 the original sorting to grade. Rough stock loaded for the planing 

 mill and from the dry kilns is carefully scrutinized, piece by piece, 

 by trained and competent inspectors. General Manager Crawford '3 

 rule to his loading inspectors is that no man shall load more than 

 one car of poplar a day, but he must be sure that the grade is 

 right on every board. This system is surely making haste slowly, 

 but the results are satisfying to his company and to his company's 

 customers. 



The Yellow Poplar Lumber Company makes high and uniform 

 grades, and it is a rare circumstance for it to ever have to take 

 up a reclaim for either shortage or quality. 



Another admirable protective feature of the Yellow Poplar Lum- 

 ber Company is its absolute refusal to ship mixed grades. A man, 

 if he chooses, may have a dozen grades in one car, but every grade 

 is carefully separated by piling sticks. In other words, the company 

 will not lend itself in any wise to the "salting" of grades and 

 become a participant in the prevailing scheme of palming off a 

 mixed grade for a higher one. 



By such methods the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company has achieved 

 an enviable standing with the poplar buyers of the country and it 

 rarely is obliged to seek new trade. The company's customers 

 stay with it year in and year out and at all times are willing to 

 pay the slight premium asked by this company for faultless sawmill 

 an<l planing mill work, splendid dry-kilning and uniform and standard 

 grades. 



Right at this time a good many manufacturers are complaining 

 of the slackness of trade. This is not the case with the Yellow Pop- 

 lar Lumber Company. It is extremely busy in every department, and 

 its lumber is moving, including low grades, so rapidly that, in spite 

 of its being the only large producer of yellow poplar in the coun- 

 try that has run steadily since early last spring, it has less stock on 

 hand than when its sawmills were started early in the year. 



Price buyers are not sought by the Yellow Poplar Lumber Com- 

 pany, and fortunately there are enough buyers in the country 

 who esteem quality above price to keep the forty million feet of 

 annual output of the company close down to green stock at all times 

 of the year. 



The great family of patrons of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Com- 

 pany are people who bear in mind that quality is remembered long 

 after the price is forgotten. 



