SELLINGLUMBER 373 



inch slats to be used in refrigerator cars for shipment of fruit 

 from California. The market price at that time on 2^2-inch 

 uppers was $55 per thousand. In a very satisfactory manner we 

 arranged to furnish the lumber worked to the required pattern 

 from Ix6-inch 8-foot strips dressed four sides, resawing and rip- 

 ping to ^x2^2-inch, at about $25 per thousand, while the 2^2-inch 

 uppers in the rough, without being worked were worth over $55, 

 making a profit of $30 per thousand. I could recite numerous 

 similar instances that have occurred during my past experience, 

 but the above are sufficient to illustrate the point I am trying to 

 make. 



The salesman must not alone make a careful study of the 

 retailers' wants, but the various manufacturing concerns he has 

 the opportunity of coming in contact with; and nowadays there 

 are about as many manufacturing plants in the great Middle West 

 as there were formerly in the territory east of the Allegheny 

 Mountains. In this way he will find himself able many times to 

 evolve means by which he can reduce the cost for his customers, 

 where absolutely necessary for proper reasons, particularly in 

 the retail trade, and at the same time help himself by working off 

 odd stock or surplus items, or narrow, or short items, without 

 prejudice to the quality or adaptability of the stock, by learning 

 the exact dimensions and quality needed for the finished product. 

 For instance, in the retail trade, he should make it his business 

 to intelligently present to the retailer facts and experiences of Studying the 

 others for example in the case of flooring, siding, ceiling and User's Needs 

 other items, even dimension, that a certain proportion of lengths ' 

 shorter than 10 feet are equally as practicable as the longer 

 lengths. The quality of the shorter lengths in the same grade, as 

 a rule, is better than the long, and generally the price is several 

 dollars per thousand less. By educating the retailer to keep in 

 stock a certain proportion of short lengths, and by showing him 

 that in selling the stock to the consumer he can secure the same 

 price as for the long, and being able to buy for less, his average 

 profit is thus made proportionately greater, and induce him to 

 keep a reasonable stock of shorts. In this way he creates an 

 avenue for the consumption of what might be classed as odd, or 

 slow moving stock, and which unless special attention be directed 

 to it, is not called, for. 



