TO THE DEATERS

We hcve been engaged lor some time in the lcrbrication ol materials lor cnticles thqt cre directly connected with wcu needs. lltfe cre, therelore not cble to furnish cany of the items lor which we had developed cr wide mcrrket-Eubcnk lroning Bocrds, Cqbinets, or Mcntels.

HoweYer, we cre crlso plcnning lor the luture, cnd when the time comes will cnrnounce c new cnd more extensive line oI Eubcnrk products.

Lumbermen Were Ready To Meet War Demand

A mechanized lumber industry wcrs crble to meet the sudden demcnds oI Wcr without "tooling up." Wood products were needed FIRST before troops could be housed or new lcctories built.

[r spite oI depleted mcrnpower cnd shortcrge oI equipment and supplies the men oI the woods crnd millg have come through u/ith record-brecking output.

In this effort Red Biver's men and women are proud to be tcking pcrt.

*PA['L

BT'I{YAN'S" PRODUCTS

Soft Ponderosc crnd Sugcr Pine

LUI\'IBEB MOIIDING PLWITOOD

I'ENETIAN BUITD STATS

Tho sorne dealers say that the prospects are grey' And the future looks dark as a fog;

Tho others may cry to the heavens on high, That conditions are all out of cog; While many declare that we're up in the air, Or sunk in the depths of the bog, Remember! ft isn't the dog in the fight That counts. It's the fight in the dog.

There's a lot of fight showing up in the dog these days; if you will allow us to refer to the retail merchants of the country in that fashion. Substitution becomes more and more the order of the day. The "Wall Street Journal," newspaper of business, tells of the efforts at substitution of materials for sale that are being made by thousands of retail merchants in the East. They remind you a lot of what many of our cou,rageous lumber dealers are doing in the same direction. According to the "Journal," retail food dealers and various other sorts of dealers are filling their shelves with articles far remote from the lines they usually carry, and the only question they ask is-"Can I get a supply?" Food dealers are selling things never before dreamed of in a food store. But the dealer seeks to survive, and the fact that there is tittle if any relationship between the new lines of merchandise he carries, and the old lines he has always carried, worries him not in the least. Self preservation is the first law of nature as he now knows, and substitution seems to be the only highway toward that preservation.

Among the lumber dealers one merchandising thought seems uppermost: find and sell things that will help people with their Victory Gardens, and their chicken yards and coops; find ways and means to help the farmer get some of the things he needs to help him make a bigger harvest. And these efforts are, of course, not confined to the farm areas and the small towns. In every town and city in this land there is an enthusiastic effort right now to raise food. Mostly it is vegetable gardens. Secondly it is chickens. Both produce food in a very short space of time. And any sort of garden requires something in the line of wood. There are fences for protection of the growing things; there are sticks and stakes for the beans, peas, tomatoes, and other food, to help them grow and produce. Chickens require housing, roosts, nests, feeding places, fencing, etc. Countless lumber yards throughout the country today are actively in the business of helping people raise food. One fellow I know cut a big stock of clear mouldings into small sticks for gardeners-and made a good deal by doing so.

The country lumber yard has an advantage over the city brother. The farmer's problem is the national problem right now, and the farmer is allowed by law to spend a lot more money for new building than can his city cousin. You can build one thousand dollars worth of new improvements on a farm without any permit if you can.find the materials and the labor; and the atnount that can be expended for repairs and maintenance is unlimited. The entire problem is one of supply. Any lumber dealer, anywhere, can sell all the building material he can get, and all of it for vital purposes.

I'm going to do some quoting from my old friend Ray Saberson, of St. Paul, who is retail merchandising counsel for Weyerheauser, and who is going around making some grand speeches on the emergency and how to meet it. He puts a lot of fire into his talks, makes them sort of exhortations, and his 'listeners seem to get a lot out of his crusading remarks and suggestions. He says the dealer has got to.make up his own mind whether or not he is essential to the war effort. If not, he'd better quit. If he IS, he'd better get busy and prove it. He says the retail lurnber dealer cannot only help WIN the war, he can actually help SHORTEN it. There's an idea. And the first thing the dealer has to do is to completely change from peacetime to wartime thinking. Changing routines is always difficult, but look what the automobile manufacturers did. When you consider them, you won't think the changes you need to make are so difficult or unreasonable.

He says that wartime regulations bring us into contact with a whole flock of "can'ts." "You can't do this" and "you can't do that" orders have come on us in such a flood that we get to thinking only of what we can't do, and forget that we CAN do a lot of things; the dealer gets to thinking so hard of his empty lumber bins, that he overlooks the other stuff that he HAS, and the other stuff that he can get. Thus argues Saberson. You say to a dealer that he could tide himself through the duration by selling paint and wall paper, and the dealer doubts it, forgetting that there are nearly ten thousand paint and paper stores in the country that sell nothing else, and do very well. You tell the dealer he can fill in his sales gaps by concentrating on roofing, and he doubts that, forgetting the many thousands of firms all over the country who sell nothing but roofing, and get along swell. And so it goes, all along the line. It is hard to get that dealer to change his perspective enough to realize what his possibilities still are.

He tells of an Iowa lumber dealer who said that one car of lumber means ten cars of hogs, and he figured it this way: One car of lumber, 36,000 feet, will build 45 triple hog houses on a farm, at 800 feet each; one triple hog house will produce 18 pigs, so 45 giple hog houses will produce 810 pigs, or ten carloads. And there are six million farmers in the United States right now who need and can buy important building units of modest size. Saberson urges prefabrication work in the lumber yard. Get in the old carpenters who can't do industrial labor, and put them to work, building completed small farm units. Put the finished units where the public can see them, and watch them sell themselves. If you caR't get the items of lumber you would usually use, try something else. There is plenty of roofing and siding to be had. if you aren't too hidebound about what you use. *

Saberson says, (as you have been reading in these columns every issue) that there are plenty of materials available to do repairing and maintenance work in town and country both, if you will use your imagination about materials. You can get all the paint, paper, cement, lime, doors, windows, flooring, roofing, siding, sheathing, insulating, etc., that you want, if you will do some intelligent substituting. Just get your business blinders off, and go out to help WIN the war-and SHORTEN it.

3 PINE AUCTIONS HELD THIS \VEEK

Three Pine lumber auctions were held this week as follows : at Portland Hotel, Portland, Ore., April 28; Davenport Hotel, Spokane, April 30, and Palace Hotel San Francisco, April 30.