'fexas Retailer Talks Shingles

Mt. J. C. Dionne, California Lumber Merchant, Los Angeles, Cal.

Dear Jack:

As the old fellow said who ran through the screen door at the bottom of the stairway when the boys at the top turned loost the nail keg fult of tin cans, broken glass, scrap iron, etc., "I didn't run, it just run itself."

Neither did I intend to write you this letter but it is just writing itself.

Two years ago I passed the quarter-century mark.in my retail lumber &perience in Texas, and each year-.I have noticed the 6/2 bxtra Star A Stars getting more like -the proverbial slice of Fred Harvey's ham. Customers called ior them and I sold them and took the money. They also called for a 3d Fine Nail and I weighed them up and took the money. I knew that the shingles were thin and the small wire nails would soon rust out but why should I worrv. every other dealer was doing the same thing and I had io meei competition. I will have to admit that more th"r, orr"" I felt aiwinge of conscience. I talked to some of mv competitors and endeavored to get them to agree to cut out the 6p shingles but met with very little encouragement'

A little later a good frieird came to my -o{c.e-and asked me to send him a Jarpenter to patch his roof which was only l*o n."tt old. The cirpenter dia nis best but the next' rain in.rd *.t" more leaks. The carpenter made a second ati"Apt to stop the leaks with tin shingles, using about four hundred. Another rain and more leaks and a third call for the carpenter. Final result: $,1O.00 spent, or thrown,away, trying io patch a roof when there rvas no roof to patch. The carpenter got the owner oh the roof, showed him the conditiron andlhe owner realized that he had no roof and decided to have every shingle taken off and heavy shingles put on. And he didn't use 3d Fine nails; he used 3d Galvanized and he didn't have to go.to the hardware store to get them. Fortunately for me I did not sell him the 6/2 ihingles as he built his house about two years ago and that was just before I opened my yard. He feels very bitter toward the dealer who allowed him to use such an inferior shingle on a good house.

Now to get to the end of the story: that one experience gave me tha jolt of my life as a retail lumber merchant and I called a conference of the men in the yard and office and gave each one an opportunity to express his views on the question of a high class concern, claiming to render to its customers high class service, and then selling a product which, in the knowledge of every man connected therewith, was an inferior product and unworthy from every standpoint. We discussed the question from every angle and ieached the final decision that not another frazzling, cockeyed, son-of-a-gun of. a 6/2' shingle should ever darken our dbor again, and if the good Lord rvill forgive me for the iniusticJl have done my customers in the past by taking the monev for such a lvorthless article of merchandise, I'll pro*i.. never to grieve him'again in that particuldr. - Thank goodness,.we are out of 'them, and w€ ,afe going, to stay out as long as the present name stays over the entrance to this business. fn answer to the last two questions I would say, one would be called a crook and the other a quack.

Draw a picture of a young man and his sensible, hardworking, homeloving young wife and their dream of a home of their own. Ilorv through the years of their young married life they have toiled and saved and done without in order to get the nucleus of a home and what a wonderful event it is when the lot is paid out and the loan papers are drawn and signed which meahs the breaking of dirt and the realization of the dream. Who do they go to for counsel and advice concerning that home? Usually the lumberman in whom they have confidence. In what position is he placed, if after two or three or five years, that little home has to be recovered and possibly just at a time when the owner can least afford to take the money from his business or his family?

What would the commercial world think of a banker who would sell a customer of the bank a note on a man who had been known not to take care of his obligations, but more often did the opposite?

What would the conmunity think of a physician who would prescribe medicine for a patient which he knew would only give temporary relief and in the end prove a failure?

What about the dealer who sells his customers a 6/2 shingle ? It is understood that this question is submitted only to those retail dealers who are ,in business for something else beside trying to get rich.

Yours very truly, T. H. Morrow Lumber Co. (Signed) T. H. Morrow, Dallas. Texas Owner.

RAPID' GROWTFI ON. STUMP PATGHES

'Western yellow pine seedlings on cut-ovef lands grow much more rdpidly in sfumR patch€s than thep do in competition with the grass hnd ,wieds,,or ini c<irmpetition with the older stand, according to the observations of the Fort Valley Forest Experip.ent Station. Sttrrnp patches are the areas surrounding groups of stgmps of the older stand which has been cut in lumbering operations. The rapid growth of the trees in these palches is due to fqeedom from competition, lvhich permits the yoting trees to grow very rapidly and vigorously. Five-year-old seedlings on some of the sample plots on the Coconino National Forest are now from one to trvo feet high, while those growing in competitioh with grass and older trees are rarely over four inches.

"BEANS'' REARDON GETS COME BACK AT HAM. MOND LUMBER COMPANY

"Beans" Reardon, the well known and highly efficient Coast League umpire who in the winter has his heado-garters at the Hammond Lumber Company in Los Angeles, has been the butt of a considerable amount of joshing and good natured kidding during the winter, all on account of the fact that this company has a good many of the League players on their force, ahd they hai'e takgn the opportunity to get back at l'Beans."

He wrote a letter recently to the editor of one of the San Francisco papers, and said in part, "I know I will get mine this summer, but right now I am having a great time. Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceedingly small, Though with patience,He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all," ,i ,::