Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

You have read and will probabiy read more in these columns about Grade-marking lumber. Let's talk a little about it, editorially, so our friends will know just where we stand in tire matter. Besides, there are lights to be t::rown on the subject of grade and quality that should be mulled o., er by the lumbermen of California.

First, let's talk about the Grade-marking problem as the Scuthern Pine manufacturers and users have encountered it, because it furnishes most excellent illustrations. They have been talking Grade-marking in the Southern Pine industry for five or six years, and trying to work out a Grade-marking program. In The Gulf Coast Lumberman I editorially indorsed the principle of Grade-marking as soon as it appeared. I believe that lumber should be uniformly and exactly graded. as an elimination of the many unknown quantlties that have vexed the lumber indgstry.

But when the Grade-marking movement developed in the South to a point where it was being widely deciared that Grade-marking is a guarantee of lumber quality for the consumer, I immediately took exception to the statement, and succeeded in proving my case. Grade-marking is NOT a guarantee of lumber quality. It is a guarantee of grade -a guarantee that a certain grade shall contain no more than a certain number of deiects. But QUALITY lies inherently in the fiber of the wood.

In Southern Pine you *r, ,r.O"."tly see the same grade of lumber frorir two different mills selling for from $7 to $10 per thousand difference in the same lumber yard. They are the same in GRADE, but far different in strength, durability, usefulness, because of the difference in FIBER. Yo's 1ri11 find in Southern Pine No. 2 boards selling for more money than No. I boards from other mills, the first being the strong, hard-fibered Long Leaf, and the other being the quicker and weaker growths of Southern Pine. But both are graded alike. The other day the Southern Pine Association met in Memphis and agreed that lumber of identically the same grade from different mills are of far different value. You can buy Southern Pine of the same grade, one species of which qzi,ll rot out in a year if exposed to the weather, while the other will last generations under the same conditions. But the grade is the same, and if Grade-marked, they would be marked the same way. Get tLe idea ?

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I don't believe the distinctions between various kinds of the same species of softwoods in the West are as great as in Southern Pine, yet they exist and must be reckoned with. You see one mill boasting about and advertising its soft fibered old growth Yellow Fir as something far better than just lumber. And it undoubtedly is. You can go to the docks at San Pedro or San Francisco and see Fir lumber of the same grade as totally different in fiber and in wood value as are the Long Leaf and the Jack Pines and Loblolly of the South. The grade may be the same, but the VALUE, the QUALITY, the usefulness is far different. And the price should be. Highly competitive conditions and lack of ordinary discrimination often markets at the same price in California, lumber of far dissimilar worth. It won't always do that, but it has to some extent in the past. Making California the dumping ground of the Northwest has been t""n:"rlbt"*for this. f befieve in Grade-marking lumber in the West, and I particularly approve of it in California, because it eliminates a lot of unknown quantities that have made the California lumber market the chaotic thing it usually is. I think California would profit much by using the same uniform methods of grading. I think it will help offset the terrible promiscuity that wholesale dumping has brought about. I think lumber carefully and uniformly graded at the mills in the North will be distributed less hurtfully in California. And, though it may seem to YOU in particular, Mr. Somebody, Somewhere in California, thatthis change ii generally made would interfere with YOUR business, f offer the suggestion that in the long run it would help eliminate many of the characteristics of this market that tend to make it the generally very difficult market that it is.

None of us, surely, would want to see the lumber market in California continue forever to follow its pathways of the past, with occasionally a decent market for a short time, but generally a heart breaking and purse stealing condition. We all want lumber things to be different in California, for the good of all concerned. We don't want it to be continually ups and downs with very few ups. And if conditions are to change, it will be only because methods have changed. We need'known quantities in the lumber business of California, and we need them worse than any other district known to man. Grade-marking will furnish some necessaryones.

But don't confuse Grade-marking guarantee with quality guarantee. Not directly. Indirectly it is reasonable to suppose that the mill that thinks enough ofits lumber to Grade-mark it will make good lumber. Th:rt is probably true. But the various mills will want to identify the quality of their fiber as well as the dependability of their grades. In the South many of the mills that have profited highly by their Grade-marking, also mark their species on the lumber. Many developments along this line may be expected in the West.

There is one line of business that bas shown increased business this past year in the face of existing conditions.

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