Vagabond Editorials

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The world always moves more slowly even than wise'men think. That is particularly true of the lumber business. Almost since the beginning of the industry we have been running short of trees, according to hazards and guesses based on facts of the moment, but tirne goes on and there are still plenty of trees. Prophecies of tree shortages and drastic lumber changes have been proving more erroneous in the past decade than ever before, for the years of depression, of shortened building and shortened production, have had much to do with that. From a standpoint of tree elimination conditions of the past ten years generally and the past five years specifically, have put us in a spot today that we would normally have arrived at several years ago.

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I recall spending a very interesting day with the late R. A. Long at Longview, Washington. That was about ten years ago. Both of us had lots of time and few intemrptions, and we talked freely. Get Mr. Long away from the press of affairs in his Kansas City ofEce, and he was a wonderful companion, a splendid talker, and an interesting reservoir of information and opinion. He was looking into the future that day, and some of the things he said are deeply impressed in my memory. He thought, he said, that another ten years would make a tremendous change in the entire Northwestern lumber TdTtry.

Here is a general view of the picture he drew of what he thought the lumber industry of the Northwest would be TODAY. (Naturally, he was not figuring on the building slump and lumber slump that was then already started, or on the long, long years of panic and depression that were then so little dreamed of). Low grade lumber would no longer be shipped out of the Northwest. The only No. 2 and No. 3 lumber to be used as such would be for ordinary use in Northwestern short-haul territory. Part of the low grade stufr and refuse would be ground up for pulp wood in the then booming paper industry of the Northwest. Still more,,mostly refuse, would be ground up and converted into wide board for a variety of purposes. The better choice of low grade stuff would go to the re-manufacturing plants and used as Shop lumber. Only No. I and better stock would be shipped great distances. Clear lumber would mostly be sliced into veneers and built into plywood, thus making available to the building world big, wide, clear, stout boards of great size. Nailing up naffow boards and shiplap to build walls and partitions or broad wooden surfaces of any size, would be a thing of the past. Great, clear surfaces of plywood would be quickly cut and fitted for all such purposes. The production of finish lumber would fall very low, and used mostly as cut stock for manufacturing purposes. Tfunbers, of course, would be cut into every size, and shipped all over the world. The great change would be the elfunination of low grade lumber for general building purposes.

Conditions have postponed the fulfillment of some of Mr. Long's predictions. There has been no great demand for the things into which the low grades must be converted, and therefore not much has been done along that line. But I believe that in a very few rnore years most of his thoughts will be manifested in the lumber industry. The plywood industry has become a tremendous one, even in the face of adverse conditions and low building demand, and with the advent of buitding prosperity by far the fastest growing use of wood will be the continued and continual adaptation of these big clear sheets of wood to thousands of practical purposes. And, the making of building board out of refuse is another department that is only in its infancy, and will come fast in the next few years. Certainly a knotty, defective log is much better shipped to market in the shape of wide, strong, thoroughly sound wooden board, than in the shape of a lot of low grade lumber. r

In the next few years the paper mills of the Northwest will boom and many more will be installed; board mills will turn out broad boards made from refuse in quantities hardly dreamed of today; and the re-manufacturing plants will convert Shop lumber into cut-to-fit and cut-to-order items for manufacturing plants everywhere. But we will stop shipping such huge quantities of wane, and rot, and knot, and defect, to all parts of the world. Mr. Long told me that day when Frederick Weyerhaeuser the First established his huge empire of timber in the Northwest he expressed the opinion that the low grades would be consumed West of the mountains, and only the higher grades shipped distances. That prediction has been delayed, but it will come.

SANTA FE LUMBER COMPANY ENLARGES OFFI'CES

Santa Fe Lumber Company recently moved into a larger suite of offices in the St. Clair Building, San Francisco, which has been their headquarters for many years.

The new arrangement makes possible the doubling of the general office space, the addition of one private office, and larger occommodation for the accounting department.

Shevlin Pine Golf Trophy

BANK ISSUES 25,OOO HOUSING LOANS

Bank of America announced in San Francisco August 27 that it had issued the bank's twenty-five thousandth modernization loan that day, celebrating the first anniversary of the Better Housing Program.

A. P. Giannini, chairman of the directorate, said the bank had loaned more than $10,555,000 under the Housing Act.

G. W. DULANY VISITS CALIFOIRNIA

G. W. Dulany, chairman of the tracle extension committee of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, recently visited San Francisco, where he conferred with A. C. Horner, consulting engineer, in charge of the San Francisco office of the Association.

tash Doors lltllwork

Above is an illustration of a Golf Trophy made of Sugar Pine. The cup is sixteen inches in height and five and onehalf inches in diameter. It was turned at McCloud from a piece of Sugar Pine pattern lumber six inches in thickness.

This trophy of Sugar Pine is a rather appropriate one in that it is to be competed for annually by the golfing employees of the two Shevlin Pine mills on the Pacific Coast, the Shevlin Hixon Co., Bend, Oregon, and the McCloud River Lumber Co., McCloud, California.

Yard Manager Moves

A. Malm, manager of The Diamond Match Company's yard at Galt has been moved to the Placerville yard. H. Hauge has been appointed manager of the Galt yard.

TWENTY.FIYE TEARS

ago we started to