263 RUPORT OF THE FORESTRY COMMITTEE 



of lumber being four, six, eight, ten, twelve inches and wider. The necessity of 

 the mills, therefore, to cut even lengths and widths makes a very great loss of 

 splendid material because the public will not vise the odd lengths and widths. 



Some years ago an effort was made by the sawmills on the Pacific Coast to 

 introduce odd lengths; they tried to secure the cooperation of the retail lumber 

 dealers in order to promote the use of odd lengths. The waste of material in 

 the Pacific Coast mills is necessarily greater than it is in mills in the east, whose 

 market is nearer by, and to which the transportation cost is much less. The 

 average retail lumber dealer, and they market certainly, outside of the lumber 

 consumed for boxes, 75 per cent of the. lumber manufactured in the country, 

 handles even lengths only, and he was very generally opposed to endeavoring to 

 market odd lengths because it required more piling room in his yard and entailed 

 a greater expense. 



The lumbermen are now giving thought to what we are going to term very 

 soon the new methods of merchandising lumber. With due regard to what the 

 retail dealer has done for us in the past, the lumber manufacturer is growing 

 rapidly to see that he has to reach the consumer through the dealer, if possible, 

 if not directly. Possibly some of those present may have noticed the efforts 

 being made to advertise lumber in various species, and it is for the purpose of 

 reaching the consumer that this has been started. This is just in the beginning, 

 and I apprehend within a year or two — or three, at least — the consumer will be 

 very much more familiar with the possibilities of the lumber business — I mean the 

 consumption of that available — ^than he is now. 



Right now I would like to make an announcement, not for the purpose of 

 advertising, but to exemplify what I am trying to explain. The lumber manufac- 

 turers of the country will hold a forest products investigation this spring, to be 

 held in Chicago in the Coliseum and New York in the Grand Central Palace, the 

 whole object of which is to place before the public the very great value that the 

 forest is to mankind, and putting it before the public by such means that they 

 can understand how the different forest material can be utilized. We shall 

 endeavor to install flooring machines, as an illustration. I stand upon a section 

 of hardwood oak floor, and I notice that pieces here are six inches long, some of 

 them twelve inches and longer, and I venture to say that the contractor who built 

 this building did not buy the flooring in that length. He bought it, probably, in 

 ten, twelve, or sixteen foot lengths, and his carpenter cut it up into small lengths. 

 If the truth is conceded it will be acknowledged that the average carpenter will 

 buy it in ten and twelve foot lengths and cut it up into small lengths and put it in 

 between the windows. At this exposition we hope to demonstrate what can be 

 done in the saving of waste in veneerings and other directions as well. It is a 

 question in which we are also soliciting the cooperation of the architects. We find 

 architects have not gotten into connection with the producer of lumber. There is 

 a cooperation between the contractor and the carpenter. The lumber manufac- 

 turer saws up his logs into boards, separates them into grades, one, two and 

 three, and says to the contractor, or the architect, "You can take what you can use ; 

 you can apply these grades to your own needs." Needless to say, there is a wide 

 gulf between the architect and the manufacturer, and we are soliciting the 

 cooperation of the architects in order that they may show us how we can saw 

 up our raw material to meet his particular requirements, and not put the lumber 

 in a pile and tell him to take what he can use and leave the rest. 



There are other agencies than the architects who can give us much informa- 

 tion on this score. The public must come to see, and I think it is rapidly coming 

 to see, that the lumberman is utilizing every portion of the raw material for which 

 a profit can be obtained, and he always has. 



Mr. F. S. Underbill, of Pennsylvania: Mr. Chairman, I have been very 

 much interested in the discussion, particularly with the report of Mr. Clark which 



