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ByC. H. White, Vice-President and General Manager, White Brcthers, San Franciaco. Vice-President, Pacific Coast Flardwood Dealers' Associetion.

Wood is a wonderful material. Its qualities beneficial to mankind are numberless. Without the knowledge of the utilization of wood, civilization would be impossible. It enters into every phase of man's existence. It was used in the earliest history of mankind.

The oldest statue in the world. now in a museum in Alexandria, Egypt, is of wood. Out of the tomb of Tutank-hamen in Egypt, arti,cles of furniture made of Cedar, Acacia, Persimmon and Sycamore have been taken which have lasted for three thoirsand years. Look around vou and you will see that wood is tlie most intimate thing in life.

On this Coast the forests of softwood are near at hand and the dealer in Redwood, Sugar Pine and Fir is not far fromhis source of supply. The hardwood dealer, however, must go to the ends of the earth for his lumber. Hardwoods and softwoods are handled bv different dealers for this reason.

Hardwoods do not necessarily have to be hard in texture. Basswood and Poplar are examples of hardwoods which are softer than Douglas Fir. The technical difrerence between a hardwood and a softwood is that a hardwood comes from a broad leaf tree and a softwood comes from a needle leaf tree. The Maple, Oaks and Poplars have t'road leaves. The Pines, Firs and Redwoods and the other.cone bearing trees have needle leaves.

The coniferous softwoods grow, one might say, in our own back yards. To secure the broad leaf hardwoods, however, we must go to the Mississippi Valley and to lands beyond the Sea, to Mexico, Australia, Africa and the Philippines. This differentiates the buying end of the business, but the selling end of the two lineJ is practically the same.

There are some hardwoods growing on the Pacific Coast, but they are not of great commercial value. It is true that Oregon Maple, Alder and Oregon Oak are used to a limited extent, but the influence of these woods is negligible.

Laurel, known as Pepperwood, Bay or Myrtle, was used for a number of years here in California, but its use now is non-existent. The trouble with Laurel is the worms. It is considered by them a great delicacy and they attack it with such fervor that there is nothing left of the wood in a couple of years.

They tell a story of the furniture in the old Palace Hotel when it was first built. At that time there were a great many furniture factories in San Francis,co. Williarrr Ralston, the famous financier of the Bank of California, who built the Palace Hotel had a furniture factory on Fourth Street, the old West 'Coast Furniture Company. He thought it would be nice to have the furniture of this wonderful California Hotel made ofa California wood, so he chose Laurel. The furniture was made up and installed. After a certain number of years, the chairs t egan to break when fat men sat on them, so they removed the entire lot. ppon examining the furniture caiefully, they found they had only shells. The wood had been aimost lntirelv eateir aw-ay by worms and the pieces retained their originai shape only on aocount of the shellac and varnish on t'he oustid-e. _ There were great stock selling campaigns carried on about twenty years ago in the Eucalyptus Industry. Promoters advertised all over the United States asking people to invest in Eucalyptus forests in California. ffiey siid it was a wonderful commercial hardwood which would grow so q-uickly that the owners would have a paying hardwood forest in ten years. Trhat proved to be i great hoax. _ 4?"y people invested and lost their money and now California is dotted with these Eucalyptus groves y!i+ produce no good commercial hardwood, but only an indifferent firewood.

TheUnion Lumber Company a number of years ago tried to utilize the California Tah Bark Oak. T[ey put-in dry kilns and flooring plants but the venture did not prove a success because it was impossible to dry the wood and have it remain straight and free from cheiks.

There being no good hardwoods on the Pacific Coast, the hardwood dealer has tg go far afield for his supplies. He finds the Eastern American woods better on accoirnt of the 'climate. There they have cold winters and the trees have to fight for existence and are stronger, the same as men who have had to fight their way up are stronger.

The great forests of the United States whi,ch in Colonial days stretched from the shores of the Atlantic to the Mississippi and beyond to the great plains have in great part been cut down. Hardwood lumbiring has moved from its original home in Massachusetts, New Jersey, etc., westward through Ohio and Indiana down to the Southern states where it now has its center in Memphis, Tennessee, that is for Oak, Ash, Hickory, Gum, etc. The center of the Northern woods such as Birch, Maple, and Basswood is in Michigan and Wisconsin.

One hears a great deal about the growing s,carcity of American hardwoods. We read from time to time in the newspapers that the United States will be denuded of hardwoods in twenty-five to fifty years.We have seen how the enormous forests of the colonial days have been mostly cut off and the land devoted to agriculture.We reasoir from this that the same ruthless sawing up of forests will entirely consume them and perhaps leave us in the distressful condition of Central China where no trees exist and where on this account the country is barren.

In answer to these direful predictions, I quote some facts brought out in an address before the convention of the National Hardwood Lumber Association a few years ago in Louisville by V. H. Sonderegger, State Forester of Louisi(Continued on Page 52.)