The Hardwood Business in San Francisco

By C. H. White Vice-President and General Manager of White Brothers

San Francisco is the hardwood center of the Pacific Coast. In this city are carried immense stocks of hardwoods which provide the material for the interior finish of fine Luildings all over the western country. The port of San Francisco is the magnet to which are drawn the fine woods of all the countriei borderins on the Pacific Ocean. Australia sends us Ironbark, that h-ardest and toughest of all commercial woods. It is used principally in our ship building plants and the importationi of it imounts to man! hundreds of thousands of -feet per vear. Central Americi sends us genuine Mahogany, Siam sends us Teak and the stocks of this wood carried in San Francisco are among the largest in the country. Teakwood is probably the inost dependable hardwood- known. It is used in shipwork, in- terior finish of the finest homes and for high clasj furni[ure. Teak has a romance all its own. Kipling tells of the "Elephants a-piling teak ln the sludsv. sgudsy creek."

The activity in Teak in itri S-an }trancisco market shows how close is our city to the far east. In fact the treasures of the Orient are almost on our door step. This is exemplil.d by the importation of Philippine Mahogany into San Francisco.. This_ port is the galiway throtigh'which enters Philippine Mahogany foi distribution io the entire United States. This wooil has taken a wbnderful hold on the consumers of the Pacific Coast and bids fair to become one of the most dominating factors in the hardwood industry of the United States; and San Francisco is the center of this trade.

California is one of the greatest lumber producing sections of the e_arth, but unfoitunately it has no good iative hardwoods. Its redwood,.sugar anci white pineire shipped all over the world but all its hardwoods have to be broirlht in from elsewherer The oak, ash, hickory, maple and otfier American Hardwoods are gathered in frirm the Mississippi Valley, and the Great LakEs region. The Southern Stal;s and twelve or more distributing yards in San Francisco maintain complete stocks of these woods for the use of the numerous planing mills, cabinet plants, furniture factories and other wood using industries which abound in San Francisco and the surrbunding territory.

Hardwood Flooring is- used nowadayi in practically every home-whether a simple bungalow or a pretintious mansion, and the San Franciico hariiwood dealers carry on an immense business in this material. Oak and Miple flooring are both products of Central United States. it has beei estimated that the San Francisco Metropolitan Bav Dis- trict alone uses over fifteen million feet oi hardwood flooring a year.

_ The public buildings of San Francisco are practicallv all finished in hardwoods. Our magnificent City'Hall hasbak for its interior woodwork. The Leeion of ilonor buildins is mostly of stone finish within, but-its flooring is Oat< tait in lterring bone pattern. The hotels of San F'rancisco are celebrated the world over. The palace and St. Francis are finished in American Birch. The Hotel Whitcomb has its doors, casings and trim in.Jenisero, another foreign hardwood, from Central Ameriia. San Francisco is ihe onlv city where stocks of the wood are carried in any large quaril, tities and shipments are made from this distiiUuti"ng^cen- ter to other parts of the country.

San Franiisco architects arid builders use hardrvoods very extensively in the construction of the thousands of bungalows and other residences which are being built around the. bay. - Hardwood, while it is more costi-y than softwood, has the advantage of greater durabiliti. and beauty. The amount of hardwood iequired in an oidinary house for doors, casings, base, etc., is io small that the aJ- tual cash outlay is negligible compared with the intrinsic value of the finished product.

Southern Red Gurn was a favorite wood for panels and interior finish for a long time but now the builders are tuin- ing to Philippine Mahogany. This wood is produced bv American Sawmills in he Philippine Islands'and on ai_ count of the'large size of the treei-and consequent economv in manufacture it is extremely low priced. Millions of feel are imported into San Franiisco eich year and ii i" taii becoming the prime favorite for house tiim.

San Francisco store windows are a delight to all. Indeed it is said that they are lot excelled by ihe window dis_ gla.yl of .any city in the world. Most of t-hese windo*, "i" hnlshed in the most exquisite cabinet woods. A walk alons the streets of our shopping district is an education in fraial woods. One front will be in marvelous black walnut, ihe nelt in glorious Hawaiian Koa. euarter Sawed O"['"ni richly figured Southern Red Gum will strike us with their sheer beauty. Beautiful Mahogany vies with silky primavera, and all built in most fascinaling purity of dlsien bv our artistic architects. San Francisio sur6ty knorfs thl beauties of woods.

It is not alone in building that hardwoods are used. Every industry utilizes them to a more or less degree. fn. ship yards are large consumers of Oak, Ash, Teak-and Iron_ par!. Th.e oil companies use great quantities of hardwoods rn.tfrerr rrgs and transportation equipment. The railroads utrlrze vast amounts of all kinds of fine and durable woods. The furniture manufacturing plants which h;;;6.;o;; ,; numerous in this district, aJ tb require a building of their own fof combined display purpo3es are enormous consutners.

It is a far cry from the early days of the hardwood business in San Francisco, when- the- lumber was brousht in clipper ships around the Horn and unloaded on t;;p;; wharves to the present day of mammoth steamers dischare_ ing their cargoes of foreign logs and lumber into moder-n covered piers. The railroads ind the steamers olvine through the Panama Canal bring the product of ttre ivtisl sissippi Valley mills to San Francisco-in quantities which would have dazed the early founders of the hardwood busi. ness on the Pacific Coast.

San Francisco has increased in population, industries have settled here, the field has widened and the hardwood business has expanded with it. The increase in prosperity in California has made possible the erection of better homes. The architects of the West have developed a typical California architecture, patterned after the style of sunny Italy and romantic Spain. This style lends itself to the use of beautiful woodwork and the results are unsurpassed in the entire country. The exquisite hardwood interiors of our homes are a feature of California Architecture and a svmbol of the artistic culture of our people.

A New Program for New Forests

By George D. Pratt, President of the American Forestry Association

"Fourteen years ago the Congress of the United States, recognizing the national need of a system of Federal forests in the eastern half of the country, inaugurated a program of forest land purchases. The plan contemplated the acquisition of six million acres in the White and Appalachian Mountains.

"The original program is still less than 40 per cent completed. At the rate at which forest purchases are now being made by the Federal Government, it will require more than twenty years to complete the original program.

"Since Congress began the work of forest land purchases, fourteen, years ago, the forest situation has changed-not for the better, but for the worse. Some 75,000,000 acres in virgin forests have been cut in the interim, and the area of deforested lands east of the Great Plains has increased to the staggering figure of 285,000,000 acres.

"The increasing urgency of making rapid provision for the forest needs of the country, and especially the densely populated sections east of the Mississippi River, is no longer a debatable question.

"Considering the urgency of the forest situation in most of the states east of the Great Plains, it is clear to the American Forestry Association that the time has come to formulate in general terms a new program of forest acquisition. A careful study of the reports of the Forester, the National Forest Reservation Commission, and the hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Reforestation led to the suggestion of the following ten-year program:

"1. A continuation of forest purchases in the White Mountains and Appalachians, primarily under the basic law, but on an enlarged scale, which will assure the acquisition of at least an additional 3,000,000 acres of land in the regions named during the next ten years.

"2. An extension of forest land purchases to the once famous lumbering regions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and the prosecution of this work at a rate that will provide approximately 2,5A0,000 acres in properly distributed forests.

"3. A similar extension of the acquisition work to the pine-land sections of the South, undei a program that will establish during the ten-year period a system of southern forests aggregating approximately 2,500,000 acres.

"The forests areas suggested would constitute but a small percentage of the total land in the regions named. These forests would not only serve as demonstration areas in the growing of timber, thus stimulating private owners of forest lands to engage in forest management, but they would provide recreational areas to meet the growing demand of the dense population of the great Middle West and the East. In addition; they would serve as protective units on the watersheds of our principal streams and rivers, and as game refuges and hunting grounds for our sportsmen and lovers of wild life.

"Such a program can be accomplished in reasonable time only by the establishment of a definite fiscal policy by the Federal Government."

AsbaLctalcnlmatfu cabin sboun abooc. Von tbin fu iliding sxow and beatingrain, it fibnsantillubitcailfint

Sugar Pine is a durable wood. Thetrees grow big and live long, because ofa toxic subatance that resists the germs of rot. This quality is carried into the cut lumber. Sash,frames,siding and other exposed woodwork, when made from Sugar Ping last for generations. Tfrite for copy of "Sugar Pine Facts," also price list and stock sheet. Give yourcustomers the best.

SUGAR PINE SALES COMPANY

68l Market Street, San Francisco