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SELLING LUMBER 



Salesman and 

 Dealers 

 Must Be 

 Educators. 



Lumber the 

 Greatest 

 Building 

 Material. 



Tall Buildings 

 Losing Favor. 



who must act as educators of the public as to the proper use of 

 lumber. 



Educate your customers to the adaptability of lumber. Have 

 them familiarize themselves with the simple grading rules, and 

 to know the commercial size of lumber. Educate the builder and 

 dealer to its physical properties, and explain to them what is meant 

 by working stresses. Let them know what to use for flooring, 

 siding or interior finish. Let the lumber salesman talk over with 

 the prospective builder these advantages of his materials for cer- 

 tain work, and let him also tell the prospective builder where he 

 should use the lumber of a certain grade, and tell him if it isn't 

 the proper use of that certain grade. Explain why and even 

 refuse to sell it to him if he insists on using it for that purpose. 



I am not here for the particular purpose of boosting lumber, 

 as a building material, but I know that it is our greatest building 

 material. It is the material of the common people. It is the 

 material that enters into the construction of the home, and it is 

 the material that we cannot get along without. Lumber is the 

 small town and community building necessity. I hate the substitutes 

 for lumber that are appearing on the market today. I hate the cheap, 

 patent exteriors with the gaudy roof, and the flimsy frames of the 

 cheap houses. The home builders are becoming more cautious, 

 and more stable in their enterprises. Construction work is rapidly 

 changing. The investor is growing more expert in' sizing up con- 

 ditions of building and the circumstances. The cheap houses of 

 the smaller cities, and many 'on the outskirts of the larger cities, 

 built of these lumber substitutes, were they to be done over again, 

 would be erected of honest lumber. The old homes of yesterday, 

 the real homes, not the houses we build today, as I described be- 

 fore, but those of the solid and substantial lumber, represent the 

 permanent and stable in construction work, and make for the 

 better growth of building, and as some one has said, ''the flashy 

 and haphazard puts sand in the delicate and complicated machinery 

 of trade." 



Great tall buildings are losing favor for many reasons. Style 

 and class are more desirable than size and altitude. Beauty In 

 buildings is becoming the cry of American cities. 



Lumber has always been used, therefore it has been taken 

 for granted that the consumer did not need to be instructed in its 

 proper use, nor given any information regarding its merits and 

 its characteristics of different grades and kinds to build safely 



