36 SELLINGLUMBER 



to be paid for it; and the fact that you have written on the face 

 of the order that it must be a good grade is not necessary at all ; 

 but the fact that it is put there is evidence that the customer is 

 expecting to get good stock. If you don't think the stock I am 

 selling is worth that money, don't buy it from me. (Applause). 



Mr. Tully: The putting of it on there may be clue to the 

 fact of the desire of the salesman to lead his customer to believe 

 that he is going to get something good. Then, again, it may be 

 charged that past shipments from that particular mill have been 

 proving unsatisfactory, and they want good grade. And an order 

 of that kind only insinuates to the Southern Pine Association the 

 necessity of making uniform grades. If the mill ships only uni- 

 form grades you will see that that kind of notations won't ap- 

 pear on the orders any more. (Applause). 



Mr. Nelson : The salesman and customer must understand 

 that no two yellow pine trees grow the same, or have the same 



defects, and that the lower the grade the greater the variation. 

 Inevitable . 

 Variations No salesman can afford to guarantee that one shipment of a low 



Q ^ w grade of lumber will look just the same and contain the same de- 

 Stock fects as any other carload of the same grade they may have 



shipped in the past. A great many of our troubles are due to this 



misunderstanding, however. 



We will take for example : Some No. 1 boards are accumu- 

 lated in running finish. These accumulations are usually placed 

 under the shed. The principal defects are machine defects, which 

 are often unnoticed by the average buyer or consumer, and a ship- 

 ment of this kind looks entirely different from No. 1 boards 

 which may be shipped from regular stock which is piled out on 

 the yard. To a more or less extent these same degrees of dif- 

 ference apply all the way down the line. 



No arbitrary selling rules can be laid down, but something 

 must be left to the judgment of the inspector. It is not possible 

 that every inspector can grade the same way; and even grading 

 is not a matter of judgment altogether, but a matter of the heart; 

 and as they say, it is the eye of the master that fashions the piece. 

 If these gentlemen will go over their yard and check up their 

 grading they will find that their variations of grade will be great- 

 ly minimized, or the grades made very much more uniform, or as 

 uniform as human judgment can make them. (Applause). 



