OREGON PINE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13863, 27 March 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

OREGON PINE.

AN AMERICAN TALKS

" AYhy, no," said Mr C. W. Cropp, of Tacom.a, b.S.A., when a. "Times" reporter aslied lnm it tue Pnget Souna people were going- to dump. Douglas lir (Oregon pine) m Zoaland until there would be no room for anvthing else. " Maybe the peop e in this Dominion, don t appreciate tnt extent of the lumber business in the three eoast districts —British Columbia, -Washington, - .ami Oregon-j-biit .1 tell vou tlioso States cut nine billion leet ot tir every year, and any small amount of trade that is to be done with Mew Zealand will be just a drop in a bucket or a chip in a forest. 1 lie 1 umbel people are cutting too last iig l enough, but there is still another iorty years' supply in sight. When you calculate that oiic jvhirls. out 300,0(1 feet a day, another 200,0UU I and so on down, you'll gather that tne trees arc thick thereaway. Ihey are in, fact closer together, straighter, anci nearer the sky, than any other timber in the world. There can t be any comparison between Oregon pme null any other timber, .simply because our timber ruiis to bigger sticks than anybody else's. If any place wiints an extraordinary big stick it Simply- ; has to take Douglas fir, . and that's all there is to it. If the fir iii the- Sound country was kauri it couldn't he handled and sawn with the. plant we use. It is because it is easily milled such enormous: quantities are cut. Don't wander away .with .the. idea that- our .

fir lumber business is worked with cheap Asiatic, labour or -anything of tlie kind.. , It's a, white trade clear through. I'orest anil mill workers are "very frequently of Scandinavian origin, but they are not imported for the trade. They are born. American mostly. .Seattle and Tacoma are biggish towns'. They were not big towns away back in 1860, when they just began to , feel they were being born. lacoma nine years ago had 40,000 people. Today ithas 100,000. At that time Seattle had 60,000 and now it has 225,000 people hustling around, and doing pretty well. It has grown from a collection of. shacks to an ornate city with the usual twelve and fourteen floor warehouses. Talking about the wages of, lumbermen, I figure tliat they : are not greatly inferior to the wages paid in New : Zealand. Both in the forest and the mill from the lower grades of 'unskilled' work to the higher grade's of mechanics, tlie range is front 7s a»dtiy to' £l—bub you'll find - in most American business enterprises the man who can do the better work gets the better money, and there is keen classification. There is no Arbitration Court, as -yoii know, but the unions and the bosses arbitrate considerably, and the law of supply and demand seems to take the place of, a Court.

e: OREGON PINE v. LOCAL TIMBERS. \ An anonymous correspondent of the *}• "Auckland /Weekly- News" writes as follows:—A' great outcry has beejtt raised from north to soutli of New' Zeaf 5 land owing to the large. importations ifr 3 the so 7 caliod Oregon pine into many' of * our -ports. 1 pan easily understand ' that what wi,th the briskness of trade the last few years, and the great diftlr c eulfcy saw-millers have had to Keep' pact? 1 with the deiiiiind for timber-many haVfi 1 been tempted to place trial orders ,otit- " side New Zealand, but if quality lias v any weight in; the matter at all, .'tfijjs 5 first order would most '-certainly be tlife " last. I am quite at a loss to 'Undei> stand why Oregon is being specified, ill '' some 'iiif the-' best buildings 1 being t erected,, being quite sure that did the 5 owners know the real value of the tini- ! ber, they 'would not allow a Stick of it to be uSed, and I can go further and ?• say this, that, having had conrersations with various local builders, I have not yet come across one who- ' could conscientiously recommend itr' ! . The manager of one of the largest mer- ■ earitile institutiohs iii the South., Island, who has lived in the parts of : America where it grows, says that'the, timber being imported here is not the true Oregon, but it is a bastard swampyvariety, .vtfiich grows in from 25 to SO. years, and ti has, therefore, poor dura--bility. I notice in" the "Auckland AVeekly News " of the 4th inst., thatMr I. Malcolm, . Horowhenua county engineer, states in the course of a letter to the Levin paper with respect to' Oregon timber:—"l have known ,tho timber for 35 years, and have come.to the conclusion that it is the most useless of its species sent to this, country. I saw the roof trusses of one of the beat stone churches ever built in the .Dominion made of it, and in less than 20:, years it-had to be taken out, and 1, believe, replaced with kauri, and none,-, of it was exposed to the weather. I;-; could tell you to one or two instances .: where it was used for bridge stringers and had to replaced in about six years. 1 ; Then, as to. price, why good rough,, heart kauri and also rough heart totara can be purchased at exactly the -same price as Oregon, viz, 17s 6d per 100 ft- , super., and heart -rimu,. framing and ; bridge quality, 17s per 100 ft. and anyone having any • knowledge at all of ', timber would not hesitate for a moment in declaring in favour of totara,- kauri, or rimu.; yet, in'spite of all this> one isastonished to find Oregon largely used, though paying -for this comparatively worthless timber the same price as s heart of totara or kauri.' No doubt the true value of these two latter timbers • will not be appreciated till their supply .! is well nigh exhausted. I need hardly call attention to the coarse, open grain • of Oregon ,which is so apparent to all, so that, when timber comes in contact with damp it acts as a sponge in ab- 1 sorbing the .-moisture to its own detriment and that of the .building. One 0f..our local builders told me quite recently v ," that he had some Oregon lying in his racks for three -yearfj, and when he came to remove it, to bis astonishment, found the timber in the bottom completely rotten. • In closing, I might .> state that I have written these few lilies-in the hope that many who arp contemplating building may be. fully " aware as tn the true value of the nio- »•; tennis to be used. A. word to the wise '< should be, sufficient,. ' -