National Conference on Forest Products 47 
AVOIDING WASTE BY DIMENSION STOCK * 
By EDWARD HINES 
President, Edward Hines Lumber Co. 
Before taking up the direct subject where, as is being done nowadays, it 
assigned to me—“Avoiding waste by can be cut up at from one-half to one- 
dimension stock ”—I feel that a few third the cost for labor in the larger 
words of explanation would be help- consuming or remanufacturing parts 
ful in the way of showing reasons why of the United States, such as the cities 
such changes have taken place in the in the Northern States from Boston to 
lumber industry as to warrant a favor- Chicago. Secondly, the freight was so 
able consideration of the cutting at low that the question was not raised 
the mill point to special sizes or di- that a considerable portion of that 
mension in hardwood. Nothing in life freight could be saved by avoiding to 
is considered without an incentive. transport the waste or that portion of 
Cutting to sizes of hardwood dimen- the stock cut out as waste at the 
sion is simply another term for con- remanufacturing plant. 
servation. Conservation, in the broad The consideration of dimension stock 
sense, does not become operative until has only been brought about by a great 
there is an incentive for it. Where change: First, by the hardwoods near 
an article of any kind is very plenti- consuming markets having ~ disap- 
ful, is selling at a very low price, and peared, and supplies coming from a 
is located in such abundance near the much greater distance, with freight 
point of consumption that the freight costs several hundred per cent more; 
is hardly to be considered and even a second, by labor costs being several 
saving in the material by having the hundred per cent greater at the re- 
stock cut at the original point of manufacturing or consumption points 
manufacture would accomplish but as compared with the sawmill or origi- 
little, there naturally would be no in- nal point of manufacture; and, third, 
centive for conservation or cutting to by the cost of plant in the way of 
finished sizes. Therefore, up to a ground, or the rental, in these larger 
short time ago the lumber manufac- cities being several hundred, if not 
turers of the country did not consider several thousand, per cent more than 
seriously conservation or cutting to the same ground costs at the sawmill 
dimension sizes in hardwood, or, as points. 
you might say, to finished sizes, at the Hence, everything now is in favor of 
point of manufacture. and offers actual incentive in the way 
It seems only yesterday, as we visu- of saving in dollars and cents by hav- 
alize time (and one man’s life experi- ing the stock manufactured near the 
ence is but a short space of time as point of original manufacture. First, 
time is measured), that practically all there is a saving in the original manu- 
lumber, and particularly the hard- facturing cost in the sawmill where 
woods, used in the great consuming the stock is to be remanufactured ad- 
centers such as New York, Pennsylva- jacent to that sawmill. In Wisconsin, 
nia, Ohio, and Indiana were obtained for instance, in birch and maple, in 
from near-by forests. They were got- logs of the younger timber varying 
ten out and manufactured in rather from 8 to 12 inches we cut up the logs 
a crude way by small mills, practi- alive, not edging it as we do the larger 
cally all merely air dried and shipped timber and sending piles of edgings 
in the rough to the manufacturing out to be burned or to the woodpile. 
points. They were then kiln dried An ordinary sized tree, if not cut up 
and cut up into finished dimension alive and if the boards were sent 
sizes and used in the finished product, through the edger, as was customary 
whether a piece of furniture or some in the old-fashioned manufacture, 
manufactured article in which por- would yield about a.l by 4, 10, or 12 
tions were of wood. The price of feet length, on account of the irregu- 
lumber was so low and the cost of lar width of the log, and this small 
transporting it comparatively so low timber would largely make a No. 2 
that there was no incentive to at- quality, the lowest grade, owing to 
tempt to save by having the lumber every piece having the heart in the 
cut at its initial point of manufacture, strip, and such other defects as, under 
the rules for hardwood, would pre- 
4 1 eral Scribe it a No. 8. This would sell at 
oa i plo Pe at the mill, under the present market, 
Interests. at about $18 a thousand. Suppose it 
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