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IvIzilbg.4ilrcts.'P. O. Bor 96, Arcadc Stetion TOS ANGELES. CAIIFORNIA

I don't think it's that bad with lumber drying, but I am convinced that methods and equipment in lumber drying are changing and improving all the time, and that because of continual research work on the part of manufacturers of dry kilning equipment they can dry lumber better this year than they could last, and will be able to dry it better next year than they can now. For kiln drying has become a science. A mill with modern equipment can dry lumber to any degree that will suit the buyer, and the moisture content of lumber has much to do with its successful use.

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Of course, mills with old kilns don't like to be told about it, and don't enjoy being told that they could greatly improve their stock by improving their kilns. The industry is equipped with thousands of dry kilns that simply turn hot air or hot steam loose in a chamber where lumber is piled, and let nature take its course. But that isn't kiln drying in the sense of modern efiort along that line, and modernpossibilities

In the beginning kiln drying was attended by many vicissitudes. The heat was turned on, the outside dried. first, case hardened very rapidly, while the centers were still wet, and Presto ! There was only one thing that wood could do, regardless of how good and strong it might have been. It warped and cracked. So the dry kiln research started in to discover how to dry lumber evenly from center to surface to prevent checking, warping, and the loosening of knots.

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In the old days the famous .,Two Black Crows', had a conversation something like this: .,Boy, we raise pigs on our farm. We buy them in the fall and sell them in the spring." "Ifow much did lou pay for them in the fall?" "Four dollars." "And how much did you sell them for in the spring?" "Four dollars." ..Why, you can't make any money that way." And the one with the bass voice used to say: "No. We found that out.', And that's what the dry kiln folks did. They found out.

My old friend Charlie Williams of the Moore Dry Kiln Company says that we hear about "air conditioning" nowadays as though it were something new, whereas they have learned all about air conditioning lumber for the past ten years, doing just what the air conditioning people are now doing to buildings, that is, controlling temperature, humidity, and circulation. They have learned years ago how to create "ideal drying weather" within a dry kiln. The old style kilns had to depend on variation of heat alone to produce circulation.

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New type kilns control temperature and humidity to an exactness, and also control and direct the speed and volume of air circulation, distributing this circulation-which is the carrying means for both temperature and humidityuniformly to both sides of every board in a kiln load, resulting in an amazing degree of uniform seasoning.

For years the Dougla, "" ,"*re said that their product could not be successfully kiln dried. When they tried it the degrade losses urere so huge as to discourage further effort, and most Fir was shipped green or air dried. Modern methods of kiln drying have proven that Douglas Fir commons can be kiln dried with even less loss through degrade than they get in air drying the same stock. Western Pine learned the same lesson. So did Redwood. Marvels have been done with Southern Hardwoods. Buyers in the North who used to insist on air dried stock how insist on scientifically kiln dried lumber with their own specified moisture content guaranteed. It was modern kilns that put the breath of value life into Southern Gum and Tupelo.

Old style kilns may easily be modernized. A Model T kiln can be converted into a t937 model, and with the same sort of improved service. The search for lumber improvement through the kiln drying process goes on. It has improved much. It witl improve still more. The law of progress is the law of life.