SCANDINAVIAN SOFTWOOD

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2179, 5 July 1928, Page 3

SCANDINAVIAN SOFTWOOD

WHAT LONDON STORES FOR THE WORLD. (By A. G. Linney.) Nature has provided the Scandinavian countries with coniferous trees in such abundance that their timber is sent all over the world, Great Britain being 'the most important customer and the Port of London the largest recipient; at the same time the demands of the Continent and more distant parts of the world are very large. It suffices to to say that the coniferous varieties most important in the timber trade as here are considered the Scots pine (Pinus silvestris), usually described as redwood and the common spruce (Picea excelsa), or whitewood. It is unnecessary in this article to examine closely such technical descriptive terms as "battens," "boards," "ends," "staves," "laths," "scantlings," etc., but it may be stated that the fixed unit for selling' purposes of wood sizes is the "standard," equivalent to 165 cubic feet, or 21 tons weight. Baltic Sea ports ship annually round «about three million standards, of which Finland's share is 1,125,000, Sweden's 1,000,000, Danzig (Poland) 527,000 and Russia's 150,000. It is safe to say that the United Kingdom buys fully two-fifths of this total.

Of the Baltic countries, Sweden is most favourably situated in the matter of seaports. Before the war, Riga was possibly the largest timbershipping port in the world: Leningrad (Petrograd, St. Petersburg) has excellent accommodation but has in the last years dropped out of the picture. The effects of winter ice on the opening dates of the various Baltic ports need here be but recalled, without giving details nor the names of the leading loading-places of the different countries.

Of all *the docks of the Port of London I may openly confess that, in summer-time, I find the Surrey Commercial Docks system the most fascinating. For here reveals itself an annual miracle, something akin to Nature's renewal of her treei and flower garment when spring comes again.

Throughout the winter things are pretty quiet in the Surrey Docks, with the exception of Greenland Dock. With the month of May and the opening of the ice in the Baltic, the green tree carpet of the countries around that inland sea begins to transform itself into a cream-hued covering which spreads itself over most of the region enclosed between Lower Road, S.E., and the sweep of the Thames from the Lower Pool to halfway down Limehouse Reach. Activity reigns over that great Rotherhithe area of "more than 400 acres, where are docks and ponds and yards and store-sheds of which the names give token of their connection with northern lands —Canada, Russia, Norway, Greenland, Baltic, Finland, Quebec —with Lavender, Acorn, Stave, Lady,' and Globe thrown in to give atmosphere and variety. The bearers of the magic carpet are rustyish, sea-battered Baltic tramps with queer tall funnels and names painted amidships; plain, dingy British cargo-boats with little to give them grace; and a certain yet undoubted proportion of elderly barques and barquentines. Strange names appear on their sterns —Hernosand Nikolaistadt, Kalmar Haparanda, Kilka; last season I saw a 400-ton barcjueritine*: jin, Russian Dock 'and the name showing:on her stern was Uusik Aupungi.

Sight of these craft, smell of deals, and the tanned faces of the blue-eyed sailors with lint-coloured hair carry my mind northward to the Baltic Sea, so lovely in summertime. I have sailed up the Baleic almost as far north as it is possible to sail, when our ship lay for a fortnight anchored off the forests which came down to the water's edge. I have journeyed across southern Sweden from the capital to Malmo, and most of the day the train was passing through woodland. I have spent much of a day in a flying boat which sped at 100 miles an hour up the Baltic from Stettin to Stockholm, and continued my way by air from Sweden's capital to Helsingfors in Finland. Everywhere, on mainland, and island, whether in Sweden or Finland, was forest; no wonder one of these countries has her paper money adorned with trees as a background. Up there are lonely anchorages where there is little but a sawmill or two amid the greenery, with graceful silver birches blowing and berries growing to the very edge of the clean white sand. Let us see what goes on in Sweden and Finland during the putumn and winter in preparation for the summer time exodus of their flattened forests. Felling begins about October and continues throughout the winter months. The first timber to meet the axe is preferably that lying fartherest from the floating ways leading to the river, which will eventually bear the logs to the sawmill, and the felling gangs may be, and often are, camped remote from any habitation.

The logs after being measured (and in some instances barked) are driven on sledges to the nearest waterway, which by that time is frozen hard, and there they stay until the spring thaw sets in. Streams and rivers are plentiful in the Baltic countries, and prove of the highest value, because not only do they furnish a cheap means of transport for the timber, but they also provide power for many of, the sawmills. Without here referring to the various steps which have to be taken to facilitate the passage of the logs i to the coast, it suffices to say that, sooner or later, immense quantities of logs do arrive at the river mouths, where; they are sorted up and sorted according to marks made on them when felled.

Confined in booms, or bundled, 100 or more logs in each bundle, large numbers are towed in one operation to the mill, where they lie in pondls., and those for winter sawing are hauled up and piled on shore before the frost sets in. In the sawmill itself ingenious, machinery cuts up the logs into marketable sizes, preparatory to sorting and seasoning. Distinguishing marks are placed on the fresh-cut ends immediately prior to shipment. The cut-off lengths.' are generally known as " ends " and " firewood," though in practice the best lengths of the later are used in this country for box-mak-ing, The planed goods are prepared from sawn battens and are stored under cover until shipped. I am indebted for the gist of the foregoing paragraphs to the secretary of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce for the United Kingdom, who adds that with very few exceptions, vesesls and steamers loading at Swedish sawmills do'not. lie beside, but are moored at right angles to, the quay, and the lighters containing their cargo lie on each side of the vessel.

Through the winter there is not an intensive activity prevailing among the men of the northland. But when spring begins they wake to long, long days and nights of labour, for hours of summer daylight in Baltic lands far exceed oursj> All sorts of seaboard Villages and anchorages are busy, and stacks of deals and piles of pit-props pass away from yards into lighters for transport to the timber fleets. From May until September end, and often much later, steam and sail move to and fro like a shuttle bringing the Baltic's green-tree carpet so that it shall become London's cream-coloured carpet. The processes of discharging, sorting, and piling are referred to further on. The sea-going barges sail away down the Channel or up the east coast; others move up-river to Brentford to journey into the Midlands; yet scores, of lighters, deep-laden, are taken by tugs to wharves or timberyards along the banks of the upper river; and always remain enormous stores in the sheds at Surrey Docks the Surrey Canal or in that district. The deal porteds handling the logs v from ship to pile are specialists in their own business. They wear leather "backing" hats with a protecting flap which covers the neck, and the skill with Which they balance a load of several lengthy planks on their lower neck and walk with their load often a considerable distance to the storage pile is astonishing. The more astonishing as they often have to travel along an avenue between piles, at a height of 10 or 12 feet from the ground, where there is but a single plank-width for their feet to rest.on. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is the balancing skill of the porters who carry fir poles. Let us now« examine the procedure when a timber ship arrives in the Thames and comes up to the Surrey Docks, where she enters the lock and proceeds to her allotted berth. The timber is piled high on the steamer's decks, and uprights built into the mass .at the bulawrks prevent, save in extremely rough seaiS, loss of deck cai*go. The goods she is bringing are discharged from her decks and holds by the vessel's stevedores with ship's tackle, and are stacked by the stevedores on the quay if for landing without sorting to bill of lading sizes or, marks.. As the cairgo is discharged, a stack is made, varying in size with the quantity discharged, on the quay, but usually not exceeding the length of the ship and extending back about 30 feet from the steamer's side.

To the layman it may well seem that the task of collecting from this immense ..mass the various lengths and marks and consignments belonging to individaul shippers is an almost impossible one, for just look at a single instance (and that quoted is taken from a concrete specification). The steamer Gunvall brought from a Swedish port a cargo for landing in which there were 248,471 " pieces " (that is, what in point of fact were deals, battens, and boards), in 279 "parcels" (or descriptions). There were 107 different " sizes " (widths and thicknesses), and \tlxe whole lot of 552 standards, or approximately 1400 tons, was made ii\ 704 piles. This cargo was discharged between 27th December and January 3rd, and up to the moment when the last board came ashore the cargo, since arrival, had been under the direction of the stevedore and his men. At this juncture the steamer herself was free to leave again.

Only now is it that in the course of operations ihje employees of the Port of London Authority-, assume respond sibility, for this is the moment when, the deal porters start., to" pile. You> -wall observe that in/the iriSitan.ce quot-; ed they had clo|e on a quarter- of amillion planks to carry into assigned positions some distance from the quay, yet between 25& January (when piling began) and 14th March everything had been cleared up. To guide them in their work .they have the information showing mi the merchant's specification, a marvellously intricate document, which had been duly handed to a representative of the Port Authority 3 when the last cargo was ashore. The specification indicates every detail of marks and isizes, and the number of pieces bearing each respective mark.

The appropriate official of the Authority gives directions to his foremen as to the actual location whither the porters are to conyey the timber to such-and-such sheds (indicated by letters or numbers) beside such-and-such a dock. Under his instructions the porters place the deals sorted to merchants' marks.

Instead of the private owner having his own timber yards on his own property, he has them near the quay where his timber was landed and so stored by experts that he may lay hand on any consignment at any time or send his vehicle to be loaded in accordance w!ith even a small retail order.