Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) accordingly. But the mills are still making boards, shiplap, and dimension. And they are still hoping the world will come get it. "And," said Mr. Saberson, "the world won't. Just as well understand it. The world wants something newer and better. It won't play with an industry that has not changed in fifty years. The volume of lumber sales has been steadily decreasing for years, and it is going to continue to do so until the industry does what Ford had to doimprove the productgive the world something newer and better." r have been trying "; al"a-."-" thing in this column very frequently in the past several years. Mr. Saberson's illustration outlines the situation perfectly. I agree most heartily with his philosophy and with his conclusions. The per capita consumption'of lumber is going to continue to decline until something is done to make it do otherwise. What will that something be, and when?

Several years ago a meeting of Southern Pine mill men at Shreveport asked me to express myself on the future of their business. I told them that in my opinion the future success of their business depended on their turning rightabout-face to their old methods. They had always tried to see how fast they could make lumber. The thing for men with virgin timber to do was to slow down, make it slowly, car.efully, manufacture it perfectly, make a better product than ever before, and sell it for a price. That was my idea then. I think they still must come to it. And that the same thing applies to all other makers of lumber, everywhere. It is made too fast, too crudely, and the world is swamped with it.

Roy Bleecker Goes To New York

G. R. (Roy) Bleecker, who for the past nine years has been Northern California representative of the Eagle Lumber Company, with headquarters in San Francisco, left February 7 for New York where he will open a wholesale office for the Kesterson Lumber Company, of Klamath Falls, Ore., producers of California White Pine.

Cypress brought $55 a thousand feet for years. Inch Cypress took a year to dry, and thicker Cypress took from two to three years from the saw to the market. And the price stayed up. The general understanding was that you couldn't kiln dry Cypress. That was a fake. You COULD, just as well as any other wood. But if they had prepared their product for markqt in two ol three days, they would never have gotten their high price for it. It would have fallen of its own weight. The long time it took to get Cypress to market was one of the things that made Cypress high priced. No one ever sold a Cypress mill a dry kiln. They were too smart for that. ***

Flere's a ray of light. The Hardwood Manufacturers' Institute met recently at Memphis. Nothing new about that. But they passed a resolution that IS new. They appointed a Commission "to make a comprehensive survey and study of the hardwood industry; to propose to this Institute a plan for such research work for the protection and development of the industry as to them may seem necessary or desirable; to present to this body a wide and progressive advertising and trade promotion program, and to recommend the means by which the funds necessary to accomplish all these thing.

There's a lot of smart and progressive birds in the hardwood business. There are a lot of lumbermen there who know that they are only go.ing to'have such prosperity in the future as they themselves create. It's always been so to some extent. And it's getting more that way all the time.I predict that the hardwood makers will solve their own problem. Only such lumber interests as are willing to solve their own problems are going to be with us long.

George Grant Visits Southwest

George F. Grant, Northern Caliiornia sales rnanager of Coos Bay Lumber Co., left February I for a business trip to the Southwest and Middle West. He will visit Dallas. Waco, Fort Worth and other points in Texas, and will go as far east as Chicago. He expects to be gone about 30 davs.