National Conference on Forest Products 17 
ing the most of raw materials and methods, together with the use of con- 
carrying them to end products while crete and steel supports, will produce 
they were in hand. corresponding recoveries in our mines. 
By-product utilization has at times Present-day competition, together with 
. been forced on industry by the neces- the absence of Government regulation, 
1 sity of reducing or eliminating risk or prevents such practice now. 
nuisance elements. Freight cross hauls are most im- 
Thrifty, shrewd, bifocal, sharp pen- portant in coal distribution, as well 
cil management has in certain in- as in many other industries. West 
stances given itself orders to develop Virginia coal is hauled to Kansas and 
the most out of its raw materials be- the Dakotas—Colorado coal to T1li- 
fore competition or restrictions forced nois and Iowa—Illinois coal to Ne- 
such developments, and this has gen- braska. 
erally resulted in steady growth and Duplication of selling effort is enor- 
L, increased profits. The attitude of mous. Forty producers have 40 sales- 
a management toward waste elimina- men covering a ‘territory whose total 
° tion, and the research necessary to requirements could be easily supplied 
0 minimize it, often spells the difference by any three companies. 
a between indifferent and splendid suc- During the four years 1920-1923 
0 cess. Self-styled “practical men,” approximately 179,000,000 tons of coke 
through general distrust of the “ex- were produced in this country. Fifty- 
rs pert” and his work, frequently retard two and a half million tons of this, or 
le their own advancement. To be sure, about 30 per cent (requiring eighty- 
vd there are “experts” and experts. seven and a half million tons of coal) 
is We will not venture to discuss for- were produced in the old-style beehive 
e est products waste, another phase of ovens. These save no by-products. 
§- our agricultural problem; that is, a Had this eighty-seven and a half mil- 
- province most ably covered by the lion tons of coal been coked in modern 
r- specialists of this convention. by-product ovens, an additional 10 per 
le Fuel—that is, coal and oil pri- cent, or eight .and three-quarter mil- 
8 marily—egives us a most glaring exam- lion tons of coke, over beehive re- 
1d ple of the present-day tendency to coveries, would have resulted. Twenty- 
1 waste our resources and opportunities. six pounds per ton, or 1,139,289 tons, 
7e Inefficient boiler-room practice causes of sulphate of ammonia would have 
n- perhaps the greatest waste of coal in been produced. Proportionate quanti- 
c- industry. In one branch—the rail- ties of gas, tar, and benzol would have 
1d roads—fuel efficiency campaigns have been recovered. A total money value 
to shown 5, 10, even 15 per cent saved of over $382,000,000, or over $95,000,- 
n- in locomotive firing. Our railways 000 a year, was wasted. Modern de- 
ry consume $550,000,000 worth of coal velopments in low-temperature car- 
annually. bonization and in destructive distilla- 
te In mining, the amount of coal left tion, giving more and better gas and 
in in the mines under present competitive increased tar and sulphate of am- 
Ww conditions runs from 10 to 50 per cent monia recovery, together with utiliza- 
Hi of the total tonnage. Use of coal tion of this gas for boiler firing in a 
ng strata and pillars for overhead pro- new type of boiler of unusual effi- 
38, tection in place of artificial supports is ciency, promise far greater economies 
le common practice. Removal of penal: than even present improved practice. 
- ties for the production of fines by the Improvement in design and capacity 
Ay miner has resulted in the raising of of modern electric power producing 
ts the percentage of screenings in Illi- units has resulted in greatly increased 
to nois mine run coal from 19.6 to 48 per efficiencies. To-day’s central power 
ill cent. station produces electrical energy at 
mn- Over the past 30 years our coal only one-third of the fuel consumption 
10- mines were idle an average of 99 days of the small units in use 20 years 
ve per year. In few cases are coal mines back. A careful survey of the city of 
Lp- operated more than one shift, as is Chicago alone shows a possible con- 
p= common in other mining industries. servation of 3,000,000 tons of coal per 
39 Installation of power drills and other annum, if all present small power- 
of mechanical devices in the industry is producing units were discontinued and 
of opposed by the miner; costs would be all electric power produced in large 
lowered and production increased by centralized stations. Further econo- 
wet their use. mies in labor, supplies, and capital 
as By the long-wall method of mining overhead would also result. 
ed as practiced in Europe under govern- Large economies have been made by 
re ment regulation, nearly 100 per cent the reduction in varieties of products 
it of the coal is recovered. Similar manufactured in this country. Xor