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the much-prized figured burl is cut. Stumps which were left when we were much more lavish in the use of our timber resources than we now are, and had little realization of the possibilities of this part of the tree, are sought out and cut closer to the ground. Some of the stumps probably come from the lands of farmers who knew it was easier to cut the tree three or four feet above the ground than at the very base, and did not appreciate that hard cutting meant more money, for in many cases the stump is the most valuable part of the log.

The butts once purchased are first stripped of the sap wood, which is not valuable, and are then buried in sawdust to prevent them from checking. When enough of these butts are assembled, shipment is made unless some veneer maker gathers them in for use in this country. But there has been comparatively little demand for walnut burl in America in recent years.

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1. We recommend the progressive policy of those companies who are raising the standard of school work by making possible

(a) Larger buildings with adequate equipment;
(b) Longer school terms;

(c) Practical as well as cultural courses;
(d) Well-trained teachers.

2. There is need for adapting the school work to the peculiar needs of the industry and the community, by giving

(a) Technical training for the youths in connection with the material and processes used in the industry;

(b) Short unit courses for adults, including
practical talks and demonstration of prob-
lems connected with their work;

(c) Domestic science and home economics;
(d) Thrift and savings;

(e) The destructive effects of alcohol.

3. There is a commendable interest in the larger use of the school building as a social and recreation center. Wherever practicable, buildings should be equipped with motion picture machines, libraries, games, etc., all under careful supervision. It is desirable to employ male teachers who can also become community leaders. The State Departments of Education should be asked to cooperate for special adaptation of school work to the needs of lumber communities. The increase of home life in the logging camps is most desirable, and the schools should be recognized as an essential factor in this.

To these were added other recommendations for the physical welfare of the employes, and in support of the school and the church, in which connection recommenda

tions were made for the generous support of the churches. In the framing of these recommendations R. A. Long, of Kansas City, had a large part, and a little later Mr. Long gave evidence of the faith that is in him by giving $1,000,000 to the church denomination with which he is connected.

M.

The Uniform Bill of Lading

WULPI, who is commissioner for the casket manufacturers and the makers of brass and iron beds, and springs, as well as for the manufacturers of extension tables, has filed a protest with the Interstate Commerce Commission against a feature of the uniform bill of lading. He asks that the four months' limit feature be changed to twelve months. The former period, he says, will prove a burden to the manufacturers, as it is too short a time to secure evidence, etc., in the majority of cases, and a year none too long. Manufacturers, as a rule, he says are not desirous of rushing to railroads with claims and only do so after exhausting all other efforts to adjust matters with the consignee. Only too frequently manufacturers know nothing of any damage to goods for months after shipment, and are only made aware of it after attempts are made to collect the bill. Then, consignees are slow in sending evidence, and to limit the time to four months, would absolutely debar the most of the claims. Then, too, frequently tracers on goods are delayed and evidence of eventual loss does not materialize until often after this time limit would have expired.

T

Will Not Forget

HERE is such a definite asset in the possession of a commercial reputation without taint that the disregard of cast-off scandal through mere change of industrial association is almost criminal-morally. It is practically impossible to cloak the verdancy of trade memory if, like the closet skeleton, a breach of ethics marks the trail.

It may not have been to escape bankruptcy that the Cutting Furniture Manufacturing Company, of Buffalo, has announced that before its doors are closed its stock will be sold to the consumer at wholesale prices—“approximately one-half the best retail stores can offer on the same articles." Whatever may have been the motive, its influence will not end when the wheels of the Cutting plant are stilled.

Sometime somewhere, when all is said and done, the ghost of broken faith will reappear. To fail in just relation is not always to err and face the music-sometimes it is to err and run. The ultimate result, however, is the

same.

M

Gentle Black-Mail or Paupery

ANUFACTURERS of furniture have recently been asked to purchase tickets for a ball claimed to be given under the auspices of an association of installment furniture dealers in New York city-a ball which they could not attend and are not expected to attend. The manufacturers are asked to come across for $5 or more to "improve the conditions under which the installment business is done in New York." Will the retailers of furniture never learn that no organization can succeed permanently which is not self-sustaining. benefits are to be secured because there is a full treasury, and money with which to do, the merchants benefited should pay for those benefits. Certainly the manufacturers should not be called upon to support the work of

If

any organization of retailers, any more than the retailers should be called upon to support an organization among the manufacturers. In the matter of average profits, we believe the retailers have nothing of which to complain. The attempted sale of tickets for a "benefit", either by cajolery or threat, is not calculated to inspire confidence or respect for anything the dealers connected with this particular association or any other association, may attempt to do.

Editorial Notes

"INCOME collected at source," is an item which is bothering a lot of the plutocrats these days.

THERE is certainly some pep in Mr. Kraetzer's talk, whether his apparatus for curing lumber is all that is claimed for it or not.

IT IS quite evident that the manufacturers of furniture came in for their full proportion of the excess of losses from failure reported in the last half of 1913.

THE proposed meeting in May, at which the various associations of furniture manufacturers are to be brought into affiliation, should be some meeting of furniture men.

THE manufacturers of Pacific coast lumber are to begin an aggressive campaign of advertising and will try to batter down the belief that the timber supply of this country is nearly exhausted, and that therefore it is necessary to turn to substitutes for lumber.

PERHAPS the Forest Product Expositions, to be held in Chicago, the last of April and the first part of May, and in New York, at the Grand Central Palace, May 21st to 30th, will prove immensely valuable to the manufacturers of furniture who are looking for an education in the available woods for their industry.

IT IS stated that whatever else the Panama-Pacific Exposition may lack, it will not lack color. Many vivid hues will mingle in the decorative "scheme." The prevailing colors will be vermilion and yellow and orange in various shadings. The sea and the sky will furnish tints of purple and blue. A blend of pink and yellow will predominate in the coloring of the state buildings.

THERE were many furniture exhibitions in Canada in January. There was one at Stratford, another at Berlin and Waterloo, and a third at Toronto. All of these shows attracted buyers, although the exhibitions in most instances were made by the manufacturers operating in the cities where the shows were spread. Apparently no furniture center has yet been fully developed in the land to our north.

A BILL providing for the registration of designs has been introduced in the house of representatives, at Washington, by Mr. Oldfield, and in the senate by Mr. James. This is the outcome of the convention in behalf of registration of designs and protection of designs, whether for furniture, wall paper, draperies or anything else. The full text of the bill will be of interest when more progress has been made with the legislation.

THE Contractors who are building the new Pantlind hotel, in Grand Rapids, are anxious to be permitted to go right on and finish the entire structure at one time, instead of completing the first section before pulling down the

section now being used-the old building. If this plan should by any chance prevail, there would be no Pantlind hotel in January next, which would offer an excellent excuse for doing away with the January season in Grand Rapids in 1915. The entire hotel, it is promised, could then be ready by May. Good chance to try a new exposition plan.

AN INJUNCTION restraining the Globe-Wernicke Co., of Cincinnati, from the use of the trade name "Cabinetsafe," and from the further sale of the fixture thus called manufactured by them, has been ordered by the Ohio State Court of Appeals, reversing the decision of the lower court in a suit brought against the Cincinnati concern by the Safe-Cabinet Co., of Marietta, Ohio. According to the charge, Cabinet safes of a pattern designed to gain the benefit of the expense borne by the plaintiff in creating a market for its product, were marketed by the defendant. The Marietta company alleged unfair competition and infringement by imitation.

LOUIS M. HARTWICK, who is a teacher of manual training in Pueblo, Col., asks if there is any movement in vocational schools to let students make furniture for pay -where the school will handle the sales-and what would be the objections to this method of allowing students to get a little extra cash. He asks that this question be put up to the teachers in the schools, so many of whom are readers of THE FURNITURE MANUFACTURER AND ARTISAN. Sometimes furniture dealers have objected to their trade being infringed upon. Something of the kind developed in Winnipeg, but in due time the dealers found that the few things made by the students only stimulated desire for the purchase of things to go with the student-made furniture.

THE exhibitors in the Chicago market have organized an association with A. W. Dassler, of the Keil Furniture Co., as president. This association is distinct from the organization among the owners of exhibition buildings, which has been chiefly responsible for the promotion through advertising which has been done for the Chicago market. There is a movement on foot, also, in Chicago to gather a number of the quality lines of furniture, which are made by Chicago manufacturers, in a building by themselves and not make it necessary for these lines to be submerged in a mass of the cheaper grades of furniture which now comprise so large a part of all the goods shown in that city. One great building for all the exhibits is even suggested as the thing best calculated to turn the tide of exhibitors and buyers again towards Chicago.

CANADA imported over $3,000,000 worth of furniture in 1911, 92 per cent. of which was made in the United States. Five years ago Canada bought slightly over $500,000 worth of furniture from abroad. These are statements made in the Canadian Furniture World, which prints in a good advertisement an argument in behalf of Canadians buying the home-made product. It claims there are 172 furniture factories in Canada, with an output of $12,369,366 in 1911, practically all of which is marketed in Canada. Despite the tariff wall of 35 per cent., the manufacturers in the United States sold about $2,750,000 worth of their furniture in Canada. But will they do it in future years when immigration into the Canadian Northwest is not as lively as it has been? And may not some of the 172 factories in Canada be sending furniture into the United States with only a 20 per cent. tariff wall to climb?

Being a Chapter of Comment and Story, Sometimes Reminiscent, Concerning Men and Events in the Furniture Industry, Here, There, and Everywhere

T

Bu THE EDITOR

HERE is reproduced elsewhere an article from the Hardwood Record which shows how, after all, it is the men who work either in the timber or in mills and factories who determine the names by which specific woods are known. The botanists and the scientific experts play but little part in matters of this sort. Our language is being constantly changed and vitalized by what is sometimes expressive slang and what more often is picturesque description. If you doubt this make a study of the old Webster or Worcester dictionary which belonged to your father or grandfather, and compare it with the latter day dictionaries which are now on the market. It is this very condition which is responsible for the wide difference of opinion among the manufacturers, and the users of gum lumber, upon the question of by what name it can be most profitably known to the consuming public. Long before the furniture makers of the country recognized that what is now commonly known as red gum was a suitable and workable cabinet wood, it was being freely used in Europe. We Americans had given it the name gum, because there is a resemblance to the pitch of pitch pine in its component parts. It suggested to the lumbermen the word gum, and gum it became. We never stopped to finish it as did the workers in this wood in European countries, and therefore did not discover the satiny qualities which are revealed when the wood is finished. Neither did we discover that the wood had any semblance to walnut, and if we did, walnut was then in the discard. But the users of this wood-native to this country-over on the other side of the water, did discover these characteristics and promptly called the wood satin walnut, by which name it is very generally known in European countries.

When the wood was first brought to the attention of the makers of furniture there was a very common objection to it, largely on account of its name. It was a despised wood, even in the portion of the country in which it grows. Gum sounded good to no one. The word itself was suggestive-it suggested that the stuff was soft and pliable, would mold in almost any shape-was essentially vulgar plebeian and vulgar. People of taste have mighty little use for the users of gum of the chicle sort. So gum came into the market with a handicap. It is understood that the manufacturers of gum who have been responsible for the advertising campaign which has been so successfully conducted, debated long and seriously whether or not to exploit the wood under its commonly accepted name or to try to promote it under the name "satin walnut" or some other euphonious and less suggestive title. But there is a lot of hard, common sense among the lumbermen of this country, and the result was that they concluded to batter down at the same time any prejudice which existed against both the name and wood itself. This they have succeeded fairly well in doing. It is a curious thing, however, that manufacturers who are making furniture out of gum lumber find it is almost impossible to sell it in the states in which the wood grows -the rather limited district of the lower Mississippi valley.

Henry Schuerman, of the Carrollton Furniture Co., feels very strongly on the use of the word "gum" by the

Gum Manufacturers' Association. His trade is naturally to a considerable extent in the south. For a good many years now he has been making furniture of real distinction from quartered, or figured red gum. No other manufacturer in this country has produced chamber suites of the same merit both in design and quality as has the Carrollton Furniture Co., but it is sold under the name of Hazelwood. Mr. Schuerman is certain that had that name or some other been used early in the campaign, the wood would have met an even more cordial reception than has now been the case, and a line of less resistance would have been encountered.

But a two-day study of the offerings in the Grand Rapids market, with John M. Pritchard, the secretary of the Gum Manufacturers' Association, as a companion and fellow explorer, revealed an astonishingly large use of the wood in furniture making. The Sligh Furniture Co. commenced to use the wood long before the campaign of exploitation began, and has used it successfully in many ways. John Mowat, of the Grand Rapids Chair Co., confesses to have used it long before he came to Grand Rapids, and he regards it as the best material of which to make imitation mahogany yet offered. The Luce Furniture Co. is a large user of the wood for both inside and outside work, for gum apparently lends itself as readily to imitation mahogany as to the popular enamel which it takes especially well. It seems to be absolutely essential in the construction of furniture of Circassian walnut, which it can be made to resemble with wonderful fidelity. It is certain there would be fewer offerings of Circassian walnut if the manufacturers of furniture of this type were unable to buy, at a reasonable price, the material for posts, mirror frames and, in fact, the entire structure of all case goods from the red gum manufacturers. Only the prominent surfaces are now veneered with the expensive Circassian. Thus far red gum is posing very little in its own right, although a few lines were shown in which the wood in natural finish was disclosed. This is as true of chairs as of case goods. Even the Barnard & Simonds Co., of Rochester, N. Y., known as makers of a very high grade of chairs, until the present season almost exclusively period reproductions in mahogany, showed a number of patterns in gum and in its own right. The adaptability of gum was best illustrated in the line of the Luce-Redmond Chair Co., which showed many patterns all made exclusively of gum in four finishes — imitation Circassian walnut, gum natural, imitation mahogany and enamel. Some of the so-called Circassian walnut chairs had panels veneered with Circassian; in other cases the art of the finisher had been employed to get the effect. Think of the advantage of making four kind of chairs from one cutting of one wood!

There is little or no doubt that red gum has played a very important part in displacing birch, which grows almost entirely in Wisconsin, with tracts in the other white pine states. The makers of this wood have just begun to realize that this is the case. They have been exploiting it in a modest way for the past three years, chiefly for interior trim. But where so used it is generally given an imitation mahogany finish, and as mahogany

it is best known to the public. The manufacturers of birch lumber are anxious now that the material which they offer shall be recognized in its own right and are planning a campaign of education in its behalf. Present market prices for birch and gum show that gum is still the cheaper wood, although freight is a factor in making the final price to the consuming furniture manufacturer. R. S. Kellogg, the secretary of the Northern Hemlock and Hardwood Lumber Manufacturers Association, like Mr. Pritchard, was a visitor to Grand Rapids during his season, and an opportunity presented to the author of this to study the use of birch in his company. Mr. Kellogg's office is in Wausau, Wis., and Mr. Pritchard's in Memphis, Tennessee-in each case near the chief region of supply. Careful furniture manufacturers, like Wm. Widdicomb, of the Widdicomb Furniture Co., and the Berkey & Gay Furniture Co., are users of birch to the exclusion of gum entirely. While birch costs a little more, these makers of high grade furniture believe it is worth more-harder, more durable; that the grain of the wood more nearly simulates the best grades of mahogany, and is otherwise preferable.

Ten or fifteen years ago nearly all the manufacturers of dressers and other chamber furniture offered each pattern in four woods or finishes. These were bird'seye maple, curly birch, oak and mahogany, either genuine or imitation., with plain red or white birch as the basis for the imitation mahogany. Of course birch was used for the structural work in the curly yellow birch pieces. Selected birch veneer was used for the fronts, tops and sometimes the end. The various enamel finishes have well-nigh driven the bird'seye maple out of the field of supply, although some of it is still to be found. Less of the curly birch is being made. The Widdicomb Furniture Co. is almost the only one

and the best ones at the top and the bottom. The apple growers of the Pacific Northwest went at it in a different way. They studied their proposition and sought a market in the face of high freight rates. They graded their apples and packed the best ones with care, and then got a price for their goods. The manufacturers of birch lumber for a long time gave little attention to how their lumber was manufactured and less to how it was sorted. The manufacturer of furniture found it necessary to put into the discard sap strips, or so staining it as to get uniform color. This cost time and money. The impression prevailed that birch was a cheap wood, suited only to making cheap furniture, and the makers of this same cheap furniture were as careless about how they put their stuff together as the manufacturers of birch lumber were careless about sorting the stock they got during a winter's logging. Birch got a black eye in consequence. It is up to the men who have birch to sell to remedy these conditions. It is up to them to demonstrate to the consuming public how good and beautiful a lumber birch is, as

THE SELLING SMILE

When you pass the wide front door,
Smile!
If you've ne'er been there before,
Smile!

Hang the cheery signal out,
Fade the frown and smooth the pout;
All the world just aches to shout-
Smile!

If you've just been turned down hard,
Smile!

The next man's on the selling card,

Smile!

Greet him with a wide-lipped grin,
Warm hand clasp and: "How've you been?"
If you really want to win-

Smile!

Trouble hangs close to the trail,
Smile!

Waiting for your time to fail,
Smile!
When you feel you're on the brink
Of the jumping off place-shrink.
Put old trouble on the blink-
Smile!

of the Grand Rapids manufacturers making a fairly representative line of chamber furniture in this wood. The finish given curly yellow birch from the first has been more golden than yellow, and the beauty of the wood so finished-and particularly as finished by the Widdicomb Co.-is unmistakable. Yet apparently public taste has in a large measure drifted away from it. Can birch come back?

We think it can. The manufacturers of birch lumber have been sleeping at the switch. A small group of manufacturers of gum lumber have given thought to their proposition and have been aggressive in exploiting their wood. The birch manufacturers were until recently much like the apple growers of Michigan. A Michigan apple is the best flavored apple which grows. But little or no attention has been given, until recently, to the care of Michigan orchards and the apples which grew almost without care were picked and packed indifferently in barrels, with no attention given to this process unless it were to put the poor apples in the middle of the barrels

-Frank Markward.

well as manufacturers of furniture the superior qualities of birch. Some of them have already discovered this more are likely to if the birch workers put a little study into their proposition and get busy.

Gum has been persistently criticized and feared, because it has a reputation for not staying in place. In its handling a different process is needed to be employed than in piling and drying other of our native cabinet woods. The first users of the woods had their troubles. But there are conspicuous examples where users have applied themselves to the solution of these problems and succeeded. Comparatively little complaint of this sort is heard The Lindner Interior Manufacturing Co., of Grand Rapids, for instance, has in recent years been called upon

now.

to furnish the trim on two of the big hotels in Chicago. The specifications called for mahogany doors, etc. The contracts were secured on the basis of the mahogany. But in planning and building big buildings economies have to be practiced, and refiguring is not infrequently undertaken. Mr. Lindner gave himself to the problem of handling gum, and has succeeded to the fullest extent. Leading architects like Holabird & Roche found that his system is all that is claimed for it, and therefore in several of the buildings which the Lindner Company has finished the wood which has all the appearance of mahogany is really gum, and even experts have difficulty in detecting the substitution. And if the effect is secured and the material is as good, what matters? Especially if from $15,000 to $25,000 is saved thereby to the people whose money goes into the structure.

The Gum Manufacturers Association is not unmindful of the things which have been said by the critics of their present product, and so one of the things which the newly

organized association has done is to appoint a scientific research committee. This committee has taken up the work of the committee from the original syndicate and there will be forthcoming in due time a bulletin giving the result of their investigation as related to piling, drying and working gum. This will be part of their educational propaganda. This bulletin will soon be forthcoming and, of course, it will find its way into the hands of every user of gum lumber and every possible user. This would seem to be a practical educational work, and it is likely to put many manufacturers of furniture, as well as of interior trim, in possession of information which will be useful. Meantime, gum natural is receiving a

very effective demonstration in the rooms of the Grand
Rapids Association of Commerce, where the interior trim
is of this wood and where all of the furniture except a
few large tables are of this wood. In the advertisement
of the Gum Lumber Manufacturers Association shown in
the February number of The Furniture Record, a picture
of the main dining-room in the Association of Commerce
is shown. The chairs are all of plain red gum, and were
made by the John D. Raab Chair Co. But if the best
results are to be achieved, the Gum Manufacturers
Association must provide a series of finishes for gum
where it is to be used as gum, and not as a substitute for
some other wood.

ASK AND YE SHALL
BE ANSWERED"

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TESTS OF GLUE

The Our

At the suggestion of the Advance Machinery Co., we are sending to Alexander T. Deinzer a pound and a half of glue which we would like to have tested. We have been using this glue for a long time and have had no difficulty with it until recently, when in gluing a lot of doors the veneer came loose in different places, causing considerable trouble. We believe the glue is at fault, although we are open to argument, and for that reason want to know whether or not the glue is of sufficient merit to use for high-class veneering purposes. cores of the doors were principally chestnut. veneers were mahogany. We buy No. 1 common, using the best out of it, the balance going principally into cores. This lumber, before being cut up into doors, is run through the kiln, and has given satisfaction, and is then cut into core stock, glued up and laid aside in the warehouse, where it remains until we get ready to use it. We keep an equable temperature in the room and the same men who have put up these doors have been putting up doors for us for a long time and always under the same conditions. We are not in position to state positively whether the lumber could have been too dry or not dry enough, although we invariably test the lumber as it comes through the dry kiln by cutting off the end of a board, marking and laying it on the steam pipes, and then afterwards comparing it with the end from which it was cut to see what variations, if any, develop. We might mention that we are using the instantaneous glue converter, made in Cincinnati. The man from whom we bought the glue claimed that we had burnt our glue by overheating, but the manufacturer of the converter states that it is impossible to overheat the glue in his machine. The doors were different from the ordinary door in that they were what is called a Pyrono, or fireproof door, with a layer of asbestos on both sides. This is glued on to the core and after being dried, is run through a machine with top and bottom rolls with projections one-sixteenth inch apart, which indent the asbestos into the wood. On this is laid the cross-banding and on top of this the veneer. In the manufacture of these doors we had placed the glue on by hand with brushes, but having a large enough glue spreader, we thought it better to run the doors through the same. After our trouble developed we thought possibly that in running the doors through the spreader they went through too fast and the glue did not get sufficient chance to enter the holes made by the teeth in the roller, but we took a door which showed signs of blistering apart and found that the fault was not caused by the method of

putting on the glue nor the fact that we were using asbestos. ALBERT STRUCK Co.

Louisville, Ky.

Answer by Alex. T. Deinzer :-Your trouble is very likely in your core-stock, inasmuch as you state that you use all your cuttings, consisting of all kinds of woods, for core-stock. You state that the particular lot giving you so much trouble consisted of chestnut. I am certain that you will find that the chestnut stock was not dry enough or heart boards were used. I might suggest to you that you remove all heart boards from your chestnut and have this dried separately and you will find that this kind of material requires nearly again as much time for drying as the other stock. You can readily determine whether heart boards were used, but it is not likely that this was the case on all your doors. Chestnut requires quite a thick glue; in fact, on certain kinds of work, the writer has instructed our workmen to first gluesize chestnut core-stock. This, however, we do only when veneering sweeped work.

It is imperative that you determine the moisture in lumber before using same. This may be done by means of a chemist's balance, which can be purchased in any chemists' supply house. I do not advise removing the moisture of the test piece by placing on a steam pipe; instead, buy a small chemist's oven, which will cost but a few dollars, and an accurate thermometer. We usually dry the test pieces in an oven for two hours at 130 degrees C. Weigh the test piece from time to time and when the weight is constant, you may be certain that the moisture has been removed. Deduct the weight obtained from the weight originally obtained, divide, multiply by 100 and the answer is the percentage of moisture. Should this exceed 52 per cent., the stock should remain in the kiln.

The writer believes that your glue man was quite right when stating that you burn your glue. As you know, Mr. Struck, heat is glue's greatest enemy. Considerable heat is required to dissolve glue. When using an instantaneous glue converter (I care not whose make), it is necessary to dissolve the glue at a very high temperature. Efficiency is absolutely necessary in every modern plant, but this can be overdone in glue cooking. You may save considerable time by employing an instantaneous glue heater, but you are losing elsewhere.

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