Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) absolutely certain to catch prosperity on the rebound. By the time he takes ofEce things will be definitely on the up and up and nothing he can do will start or stop it. And the tide of prosperity that should follow through the most of his term of ofEce will be placed to his credit. What a break ! No wonder Hoover was bitter during the closing days of the campaign. No wonder Al Smith is embittered. Al would be President almost by acclamation this tirne if it were not for his religion. Anyone running on the Democratic ticket was a cinch for election; and Smith is tlc m^st nnnrrlar rna_n nersonally in the nation today.

In the meantime the most vital and important thing we can do is get men back to work. Yet, while uncounted thousands of willing men are eagerly seeking employment, worlds of men have become unemployable. The other day a ship loaded with lumber pulled into the docks at San Francisco to unload. It so happened that there were no longshoremen immediately available, and the captain was in a great hurry. He went bver to the "jungles" a few blocks away, one of the biggest of its kind in the whole country, where there were several thousand men living and begging. He asked for twelve men to work six hours at eighty-five cents an hour. The word was passed through the entire "army". Do you know how many men he got? NOT ONE! And those devils who won't work demand that the public feed them. ***

Remember this: The low consumption of lumber during the last three years cannot be attributed to the inroads of so-called "substitutes." Not at all. The other building materials have fallen off fully as much as lumber. The entire trouble has been lack of building. That's all. And when building volume returns, lumber consumption will return. We now have a vacuum of more than five years behind the lumber industry, for lumber consumption had been dying fast for two years before the stock market crash of 1929. ***

Lots of people say "California did not feel the depression until long after the rest of the country did." Wrong. All wrong. California had been gradually going down hill in a business way since the boom of 1922 and 1923. Check the build'ng permits and see. Building has been steadily and continually dropping-particularly in Southern California-since 1924. It was not a case of the depression getting to California LATE. It got here EARLY. Business was very, very slow in California in 1928 and 1929, when the rest of the country was enjoying a fuenzy of apparent prosperity. California did NOT feel the first gery eral crash like the rest of the country, but it was because she had been gradually slumping for a long time before that.

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California is entitled to a greater and more definite backswing for that very reason, than any other part of the country. And she will unquestionably get it. When the general swing of the pendulum upward becomes definite, California should lead in the come-back. Eight years of slipping justifies the prediction of a marvelous back-swing.

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Long-Bell now announces what it refers to as "the greatest achievement in building construction in a century of progress," Enterlocking Fabricated Building Lumber, patented. Read about it. There is much to think about in its application to the building situation. The originator and patentee of the idea is a retail lumberman who has been trying for twenty years to get someone to see the possibilities in his plan. Many who listened to him thought he was a little "touched." Long-Bell finally looked and. decided that he WAS touched-by genius. So they are making and marketing this Enterlocking Fabricated Lumberthrough the retail lumber trade.

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The story is a long one, but if it does nothing more than eliminate "jerry building" and the possibility of mistakes in using improper sizes and grades of lumber for specific uses, it will be a blessing. There IS a big thought in this thing.

Was just reading a letter written by a well known physician in Los Banos, C-alifornia, to The Pacific Lumber Company. FIe was telling what Redwood bark fiber had done as an insulator in his home in that town. He testifies that when the temperature was 105 outside, last summer, the temperature in his living room was 82, and, in some other parts of the house 79, without the aid of fans or air conditioning of any sort. He says he never used the cooling sys- tem he had installed at all. Now THERE'S something in wood products to brag about.

I made some critic" t"***" last issue in this column about the senseless and impractical bunk we use so freely and so generally in our business correspondence, and mentioned some of the phrases as examples. Ilere's a prize entry for that list that I forgot to mention: "As of the first." Some fat-head is always doing something "As of the first of January," or some other time. When I write my index expurgatorious for silly phrases, I'll list that one right close to the top.

Philippine Lumber Production for 1932 Shows Big Decrease

The entire lumber production of the Philippine Islands at the present time is approximately only about six million feet a month.

This is a sharp contrast to 1928 when the Islands produced 610,000,000 feet of lumber. In 1929 it had fallen to 464,000,000 feet, and has been falling steadily and rapidly since that time.

In l9D the exports of Philippine lumber totaled 104,000,00O feet, most of which came to the United States. Today the entire production of Philippine is less than they used to ship to the United States.

The estimated total stand of merchantable timber left in the Philippines is 485,000,000,000 feet, all hardwoods, which is unquestionably the greatest stand of hardwood timber on earth. At the present rate of cutting it would be an everlasting supply, and even at the highest rate so far attained it would take hundreds of years to consume it.

There is one large new sawmill in the Philippines, that which has just been completed by the Findlay-Millar Timber Company, at Kolambugan. This mill was built to replace one destroyed by fire. It is finished and ready to go, but will not be placed in operation until business conditions improve very materially. It is a double band mill, with every known modern form of equipment for manufacturing and preparing Philippine cabinet woods for market.

The market price of Philippine lumber is about 60 per cent of what it was two years ago.

New Redwood Bulletin

A new technical bulletin giving a very comprehensive study of the strength and related properties of Redwood has recently been issued by the United States Forest Service. The book is cornpiled by R. F. Luxford, associate engineer, an1 I-. J. Markwardt, senior engineer, Forest Products Laboratory, Branch of Research, U. S. Forest Service.

Copies of this bulletin may be had at l0 cents each from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Title of bulletin is "The Strength and Related Properties of Redwood".