246 



SELLING LUMBER 



The 



Importance 

 of Shipping 

 Clerks. 



What Mill 

 Operators 

 Might Learn 

 at Retail 

 Yards. 



Wet, Green 

 and Crooked 

 Stock 



for the reputation of the sales office and can either retard or ad- 

 vance their efforts towards securing and holding a steady trade 

 decidedly. 



The shipping clerk and his assistant loom up before the road 

 man as the most important factors around the mill. Judging from 

 the salaries paid them and the education given them, they do not 

 seem so important to the average operator. 



These men should, as in the case of salesmen, have at least 

 a working knowledge of the other end of the game. It has been a 

 common practice for many years to afford salesmen periodical trips 

 to the mill, but the idea of sending the shipping clerks out to the 

 retail districts seems to have been entirely overlooked. Send them 

 out with your several salesmen on a sixty-day trip, they will return 

 much better prepared to handle their work intelligently. A tailor 

 can make a better fitting suit of clothes by measuring his man 

 personally than by working from a mail order. In this connection 

 it would do no harm for a few of the sawmill owners to take such 

 a trip. Many of them have not seen the inside of a retail yard for ten 

 or fifteen years. Styles have changed in lumber during this time, 

 and the real men behind the guns should get themselves up to date. 



These men would discover, especially in the Corn Belt, that 

 practically all lumber, both common and upper grade, is piled under 

 shed, thus necessitating the receipt of dry lumber or causing extra 

 expense and great inconvenience in handling wet or green stoclc. 

 They would find that blue lumber is unsalable at the same price 

 as dry bright lumber. In fact, the average consumer thinks that 

 blue stuff is already half rotten and he will not take it. 



They would see the necessity of quick service and would 

 not consider a letter from a retailer rushing his order so trivial a 

 matter as they do now. Any lumber yard requires too large an in- 

 vestment of capital for the .buyer to anticipate his wants 'over sixty 

 days in advance. Lumber for north central points is in the hands 

 of the carrier for from two to six weeks, and an order should not 

 be held at the mill over two weeks at the most. 



There is absolutely no sale for mis-manufactured upper grade 

 lumber in the better districts. It had better be remilled or worked 

 into something else at the base of operations. Also crooked stock 

 has to be cut up into short lengths, so this may as well be done at 

 the mill. It will save the salesman from a cussing and maybe save 

 the customer. In this connection, it is generally conceded that yel- 

 low pine grades as followed by the better class of mills are satis- 



