Random Editorial Ramblings

By Jack Dionne

This IS a funny lumber industry. Peculiar in a thousand ways. A lumberman accustomed to the ways and doings of the lumber business elsewhere comes to California and looks above him, and feels as though he has invaded another world. It's all so different. Mr. Smith's recent letter only touched on a few phases of the Douglas Fir industry in California. Perhaps some of these days someone will get up and talk plain facts about a lot of other funny things in other phases of the California lumber industry. Progress can nevef, come until some iconoclast begins throwing rocks at established customs and conditions.

In the past California has used almost exclusively lumber green from the saws, the grades, sizes, etc., being hopelessly hashed. The segregation of lengths, widths, thickness, and grade that is known practically everywhere else has been missing, and lumber is "just lumber". That such a condition has brought conlinual trouble should surprise no student of lumber things. Some of these days California is going to use seasoned lumber (the architects of the state have been growling against green lumber very loudly for the past several years), and separate and segregate its grades and items of size. It will be a very, very good thing for everyone concerned with the industry when that change is entirely made. t** rF**

Writing in his famous column in the Hearst papers, Arthur Brisbane recently commented on his impressions on seeing big Fir trees logged in the State of Washington where he then was. lle deplored the cutting of great trees, and while he made no critical or unkindly remarks concernjng the lumbermen, he expressed the wish that we may develop a civilization that will protect the forests, and stop killing things. We gather from his remarks that Gov. Hartley of Washington, himself a life-long lumberman, was Mr. Brisbane's companion in his woods visit in the Northwest.

Isn't it too bad that lumbermen, when they have a chance to get great and necessary truths before the public, seem to invariably overlook that opportunity. Why didn't Gov. Hartley tell Mr. Brisbane the pertinent and outstanding facts about cutting the forests? Why didn't he tell Mr. Brisbane so that that gentleman could have told his millions of readers, that cutting trees is like cutting flowers; if you don't cut them when they are in bloom, they soon wither and disappear. Why didn't he tell him that trees are just a crop, that grows, matures, deteriorites, and then decays, and should be cut before deterioration sets in. Why didn't he tell him of the numgrous counties in Washington and Oregon that have no wealth except trees, no income except the income that comes from commercial tree value?

There is no more common-sense and thoroughly justifiable business on earth than, the commercial cutting of trees. Mr. Brisbane could have helped the lumber industry a lot by getting those thoughts over, and he would have done it had they been handed him. Instead, like all men of sentiment, he looked upon the fall of great trees as a sentimental crime, regretting that they are not allowed to stand forever. But they don't. They decay, lose their commercial value, and mankind loses a great service and a valuable commodity. Cut into lumber, those trees protect man and his possessions through generations. ***

We speak frequently in this column of the great millwork industry of California. Every day interesting sidelights bob up. For instance, the other day we saw piled in a big hardwood lumber shed some planks that 'ive were told were genuine French WalnUt. It sells to the trade in Los Angeles for about $SOO a thousand. What is it used for, we naturally asked? To manufacture period French furniture, we were told. Some big home is to have a Louis XIV room. So the furniture must be made of genuine French Walnut brought over from France. "We can sell them American Walnut, finer in grai4 and quality, for from $100 to $150 a thousand, but they must have the genuine French stuff and are willing to pay the difference", said the hardwood yard man to me with a quizzical grin. So there you are. They likewise carry and sell genuine imported English Oak for the same purposes and reasons, to make reproductions of famous English furniture. They can get American Oak for half the price, better looking and better, but they are willing to pay for the genuine English. Perhaps the idea is all right. In this day of imitations this fidelity to the genuine is refreshing. ***

Truly this is the day of the young man in business. Forbes Magazine, in a recent editorial, veiy aptly says: "Apparently the men who are doing things these daysorganizing new companies, building new factories, opeping new trade territories, establishing new precedents in all lines of endeavor including commercial aviation-are those below the age of 45. If we can get more of our so-called conservative element to see this side of life, perhaps they

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