24 



SELLING LUMBER 



Identifying 

 Species 

 "By the 

 Feel" 



Introducing 

 Mr. Nelson 



fiber per cubic foot of wood. In other words, the physical, chem- 

 ical and structural characteristics of the wood fiber of the individual 

 species is almost the same, and they are very, very difficult to sep- 

 arate. Consequently, while it is easy enough to distinguish between 

 a short leaf and a long leaf piece in the tree, when it has once been 

 cut such characteristics as rate of growth and density of wood pel 

 cubic foot, when told by the eye, are absolutely beyond any kind oi 

 method of determination accurately and I care not who says that 

 can be done. For illustration, some years ago I had a group of 

 thirty or forty, yellow pine men who told me that they could tell 

 by the feel of it. I ran them up against a pile of one hundred 

 logs around there, and asked them to distinguish the long leaf from 

 the short leaf. I had as many results as there were men. Every 

 stick in the pile was cut 150 miles north of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, 

 and there was not a long leaf or short leaf tree within 150 miles of 

 the place. You can tell anybody who asks you how to determine 

 the difference between long and short leaf pine after it has been 

 made into lumber that it can't be done. It is physically impos- 

 sible. 



The Chairman : I hope, gentlemen, if any ether questions of 

 this character occur to you, that you will let us have them as 

 promptly as possible, and we will endeavor to answer just as many 

 of them as we can. It is very apparent, however, to us, from the 

 number of questions that are being turned in, that it is going to be 

 a physical impossibility for us to attempt to answer them all now, or 

 open them for discussion. We will, however, print an answer to 

 every question that we can answer in the printed proceedings, so it 

 will give you something to look for when you receive the volumes. 

 From the looks of things, the printed proceedings of this school is 

 going to be about the size of a young dictionary. 



The next speaker on the program and we are going to vary 

 some from the printed program, owing to disappointment is a man 

 who holds a very unique position in the yellow pine industry. I 

 shall introduce to you Mr. M. B. Nelson, sales manager of the 

 Long-Bell Lumber Company, of Kansas City, Mo., a man who has 

 sold more yellow pine than any other one man in the industry. I 

 can assure you that Mr. Nelson has held his position through abil- 

 ity; and what he has to say now on the subject may be considered 

 as authoritative. (Applause.) 



