New York City Building Engineers Make Inspection Trip Through Northwest

Seattle, Wash., April 7.-Millions of dollars may be added to the Pacific northrvest lumber industry as the result of the tour now being taken through this section by the five building engineers, representing the greater boroughs into which New York City is divided. Their investigation of the hemlock of this section should result, according to the West Coast Lumber Bureau, Seattle, in giving hemlock the place it deserves in the New York building world.

This Atlantic Coast market is one of the largest of all lumber markets and is one into which West Coast woods have been going in increasing quantities during the past six years. Cost of construction planned for 1927 in l\[anhattan borough alone is estimated at approximately $375,000,000.

Western hemlock, it is agreed by the visitors, has been given a bad name because of confusion rvith the eastern species, a very inferior wood from a building standpoint. When shipments of western hemlock began coming to the Atlantic seaboard a ferv years ag'o, some dealers discarded the name "hemlock" entirely and called the wood "Washington Pine," or "gray spruce," in an effort to distinguish beween it and the eastern and northern varieties.

To aid in merchandising hernlock in the East, the bureau has recently carried on a series of tests in the Columbia University Testing Laboratories of Nerv York City. The visiting engineers acted as supervisors for these tests and have norv come to the coast, as g'rlests of the West Coast Lumber Bureau. to check for themselves in the forests and mills rvhere West Coast hemlock is orocluced.

Lumbermen Leave For African Hunting Trip

J. N. Boshoff, Red River Lumber Co., Westwood, left on March 31 for Cape Town, South Africa, from where he will lead a hunting expedition into the Tanganyiki District of Africa. He will be met at Mombasa, South Africa, by Fletcher L. Walker, Jr., and Kenneth Walker, sons of Fletcher L. Walker treasurer and resident manager of the Red River Lumber Co., who are making the trip by way of London, the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.

Mr. Boshoff is a native of South Africa and lived there until after the Boer War, in which he served as a Colonel with the Boer army. Their African trip will last several rnonths.

Conducted here from the east by J. S. Rine, eastern inspector for the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, the New York party includes Thomas H. Heatley of the Bronx borough, dean of the delegation ; Richard Biown, Qugens; A. B. Comins, Richmond; Rollin C. Bastress, Manhattan; Edward Wilkinson, Brooklyn. While on the West Coast lhey ary in charge of C. J. Hogue, Bureau field manager; J. B. Fitzgerald, of the Bureau publicity department, L. A. Nelson, of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association.

Arriving at Vancouver, B. C., April 3, the party went to Seattle by boat, meeting city building officials and viewing the canal and dock construction in Seattle on Monday. On Tuesday they visited the Clark Nickerson plant and Weyerhaeuser Mill C at Everett, being particularly interestecl in a Japan shipment of West Coast hemlock squares, These squares were 18 by 18 inches and from 30 to 40 feet long.

After inspecting the laboratories at the University of Washington and watching the high-climber at work, the engineers left for Gray's Harbor. The Eureka Cedar Lumber & Shingle Company.and the Polson Logging Company's can.rp rvill be visited. On Friday the group met rvith representatives of mills interested in West Coast hemlock at the Winthrop Hotel, Tacoma, after going through Tacoma lunrber mills.

The largest Douglas fir tree, recently discovered near Mineral, Washington, will be visited Saturday morning before the party goes to Portland. Saturday night and Sunday will be spent in Portland and Columbia river mills and Monday at the Long-Bell Lumber Company, Longview.

J. H. BJORNSTAD SELLS INTERESTS IN DIXIE LUMBER AND SUPPLY COMPANY

Mr. J. H. Bjornstad, president of the Dixie Lumber & Supply Company, wishes to a?rnounce that he has sold his interest in the company to his business associatis, Mr. R. H. Qurney, Mr. W. S. Cowling and Mr. Arthur A. Jensen.

Mr. Bjornstad has owned the controlling inferest in the Dixie Lumber & Supply Company since it was organized in 1913. The Dixie has enjoyed a wonderful growth under Mr. Bjornstad's management and in leaving Mr. Bjornstad wishes his associates every success. There will be no change in the business policy of the company and the new officers have pledged themselves to the service of the many friends and customers of the Dixie Lumber & Supply Company.