72 



SELLING LUMBER 



The Density 

 Rule Answers 

 Questions 



I said : "If you are serious about that I will expect from you 

 within six months a report of all the lumber in this district suit- 

 able for shingles, within a radius of ten miles." He said : "How 

 am I going to do that?" In less than six months I had a volumi- 

 nous report on shingles. He had fellows climb up on ladders and 

 swipe a shingle or two from houses and barns, and he had a mass 

 of information with respect to the particular qualifications of the 

 woods for shingles. Now every one of you, in going about the 

 country, have opportunity to examine particularly effective results 

 of the applications of yellow pine ; and I am going to^ speak par- 

 ticularly of the defects of yellow pine. 



Now let me rapidly analyze one or two of those. One of the 

 principal causes of trouble, which I .had occasion to refer to day 

 before yesterday, is the question of distinguishing the species. 

 Why is short leaf, and why is long leaf, and so on ; and you have 

 had those shot to you. The reason that this question has been 

 such a long-standing source of trouble is that we haven't had a 

 technical basis on which to talk squarely and right out about that. 

 As I said the other day, we now have a rule that is a very logical 

 rule, prepared by the United States Forestry Service, and approved 

 by the leading technical societies, which, has become practically a 

 standard from one end of the country to the other it is what we 

 call the Density Rule. The Density Rule is a practical, every-day, 

 common-sense method which; every man can use to indicate in a 

 broad way the difference between a heavy stick of wood and a light 

 stick of wood. The weight per cubic foot, or its density, is a cri- 

 terion of strength, irrespective of whether it is yellow pine or any 

 other wood; but, referring to yellow pine, the heavier it is the 

 stronger it is. We cannot weigh every piece, but the next best thing 

 is to find something ocular, entirely, and it is found by taking the 

 average of the rings in the third, fourth and fifth inches from the 

 pith and measuring the number of growth rings. Each of the 

 growth rings has two parts, a light colored part, or spring wood, 

 and a dark colored, or summer wood; and if there are at least six 

 growth rings to the inch, and these have an average of at least 

 one-third summer wood, it makes what we call a dense piece of 

 pine. Forget about short leaf and long leaf ! It has nothing to 

 do with it. Forget about grade! It has nothing to do with grad- 

 ing. It is the classification of the wood itself. But if there are 

 not six annual rings, that is, if there are less than six rings o/i 



