Shevlin Pine Sales Gompany

R. M. Morriss Visits California--Wolmanized Lumber is His Successful Hobby

R. M. Morriss, of Chicago, President of the American Lumber & Treating Company, is a California visitor at the present time, dividing a couple of busy weeks between Lo; Angeles and San Francisco.

Mr. Morriss is the drive-wheel of one of the fastest growing industries in the entire United States today-the Wolmanized Lumber industry. All his life a lumberman in the South, Mr. Morriss long ago conceived the idea that a pressure-treatment of lumber that would give the protection against decay and insects that creosote affords, without the attendant disadvantages of handling and smell that comes with creosote, and distributed by and through regular lumber channels, would practically rejuvenate the lumber industry. Ten years ago he secured the American rights to the use of Wolman Salts for lumber preserving under pressure. Then began a fight to secure the assistance and cooperation of the lumber industry in the matter. The lumber industry is notoriously slow to take up new merchandising ideas, and indifferent to innovations that require a change of pace and plan.

So for years Mr. Morriss had an up hill fight. It was only about three years ago that he got his first firm foothold vrhen a progressive lumber manufacturing firm in Arkansas cooperated with him in the building of a plant to Wolmanize lumber. It was an immediate success. The lumber firm operates the plant and sells the products. Another plant in Arkansas soon followed. Then in rapid succession other plants were either built or secured in various parts of the country. Today in addition to the two in Arkansas there is one in Florida, one in Massachusdtts, one in Louisiana, one in Virginia, one in Oregon, and one in California. The Pacific Coast is served by the plants at Wauna, Oregon, and Wilmington, California. The Wauna plant treats only rvith Wolman Salts. The plant at Wilmington, California, treats with both Wolman Salts and creosote.

Following the established national policy of the company these plants aim at one hundred per cent lumber distribution. The plan at Wilmington, for instance, sells the large wholesalers of the territory, and the wholesalers stock the lumber and sell and distribute to the retail yards, who sell it to the trade. The American Lumber & Treating Company, says Mr. Morriss, does not sell the trade at any time. The example of a retail lumber yard in Southern California selling ten thousand railroad ties, pressure-treated, shows how the thing works for the benefit of the dealer in lumber. They consider their plants simply service stations where the iumber industry can secure pressure-treated lumber to furnish their trade.

Mr. Morriss states that his company plans to have pressure-treating plants all over the country where there is a trade to be served, their present eight plants being simply a start on their large program. At Wauna, Oregon, for instance, they have already increased the capacity of their treating plant two and one-half times to meet the growing demand for their Wolmanized Lumber.

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