Atrnouncernent to those who sel[, b*y,

Specify Or Install

Douglas Fir Doors

Tr .DFPECTTVE August 15, 1947, al.l doors manufactured by member factories of the Fir Door Institute were placed under official F.D.I. inspectionto assure the highest possible degree of product quality and uniformity. At the same time, revised industry standards were adopted by Institute members, those changes including new dimension specifications.

With the start of inspection, based on F.D.I. standards, Douglas fir pre-fit stock doors are now manufactured: 1.28-inch less than net book height; 3/16-inch less than net book width.

These new sizes permit pre-fit stock doors to be installed without sawing, trimming, or planingsauing on-thejob time und reducing costs.

The offcial F.D.I. seal and grademark will be placed on every door coming under the Fir Door Institute inspection serviceand onlg on officially inspected doors. Grades will continue to be indicated by the letters A, B, C and MR; and such grades will be maintained in strict accordance with the industry standard.

The of f icial Fir Door Institute seal-teproduced in the heading of this aduertissnsny -is s sutnbot of f ine raf tsmanship iou bached f or the f irst time bg a rigid inspection. Specifg Douglas. fit doors bg this "grade trademarh"Vout assurance of controlled qualitg and product unif ormitg.

Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 8)

Will Clayton, (Inder-Secretary of Stateuntil recently, is in my judgment the best fitted and equipped of all Americans to judge the European situation, and to say what should and could be done. Mr. Clayton, just returned from over there, says that the Marshall Plan is our only hope for saving Europe (and ourselves), and he is certain that that Plan can be made to work. He looks forward almost with enthusiasm to a future under the operation of that Plan. Personally I would rather have his opinion than that of any other human. He possesses high intelligence. high integrity, and he has had his nose right in that European feed-trough long enough and close enough to form inteltigent opinions. Therefore I'm for the Marshall Plan. and as quickly ;ls possible.

Mr. Clayton believes that incentive is the answer. Those nations over there must do their best to help themselves. and then we will work with them. It's a tough road with lots of rocks and pitfalls as Mr. Clayton admits. But there is no easy road, and to him this one looks passable.

I would only add the opinion that every man f hear seems to be agreed on; let us not lend a hand or a dollar to help any man who isn't trying his best to help himself. Lots of smart men think that European labor hasn't really worked in decades past, and that it is going to be a tough job to make them do so.

I fear England is our worst problem. They are NOT working long or hard enough in England, and there is little indication that they intend to do so. The Socialist government has made a complete and abject failure of all its economic efforts up to date. Yet in spite of that fact, they announce that more and more industry will be nationalized. Looks bad. This nation generally wants to save England. But unless English production of coal, etc., increases sharply, helping n*.t ltt]* be orrr toughest problem.

If we DO decide to try the Marshall Plan, let us do it with our eyes and minds open to the facts. A lot of dust is being thrown into our eyes about how it can be done with no particular shock to our national economy. The man who says so is either very unwise, or very untruthful. If we ship abroad all the things needed over there, you can be dead certain of these facts: it will raise prices here at home; it will keep taxes high for an indefinite time; it will require sacrifices from all our people. We must make our decision on this momentous matter. but we must understand what we are doing, and what it entails. If we are to be our brother's keeper to the extent proposed by the Marshall Plan, it won't be easy, and it won't be cheap. We will be giving until it hurts, and don't doubt it for a moment. We will be doing it in spite of these facts, because there seems no other way,

The editorial in the Vags of September first about the timber growing experience of the Menominee tribe of Indians in Wisconsin, brought lots of interesting returns. Perhaps the most important was the fact that the United

States Forest Service in its clipping sheet No. 134 reproduced that editorial in a big way, even reproducing the "Vagabond Editorial" heading. Thanks.

Don't say "there's nothing new under the sun," even though that old piece of philosophy has withstood the trials of generations. There is always something new bobbing up, and that is particularly true of the modern lumber business. Just looked through a very interesting issue of the Canada Lumberman, a fine Canadian trade journal, and found something that was entirely new to me, and I've been studying this lumber business for quite some time. The new idea is grading and classifying lumber in the log before it even goes to the mill, instead of the usual method of grading and classifying the lumber afterwards. Of course these people do that too, but they simplify and improve the system by grading the logs first.

The Alaska Pine Company, at New Westminster, British Columbia, is the user and originator of the system. It has a very large mill and a log pond of huge capacity, that being necessary for this operation. By means of long lines of log booms heading up to the tail of the sawrnill, they lay out eight separate pockets, and their logs are separated for grade, character, size, etc., and segregated in these booms. Only logs of the'same size and grade are pocketed together. Then the mill runs on only one grade and size of logs at a time. A picture in the Canada Lumberman shows how cleverly and interestingly this is done. They claim this separation of size and grade greatly facilitates their effort to get the greatest possible usefulness out of .each log they cut. As the log goes through the .sawmill, through band mills, gangs, resaws, edgers, and trimmers, skilled men continually grade the product and cut it for maximum usefulness and highest grade. Starting with logs of the same approximate size and grade, this selectivity is greatly facilitated. To the writer, this is entirely new, and decidedly interesting. And the Alaska Pine Company claims it pays in direct profits.

And in another c"rr"ailn ;i.t journal I found a description of a new type sawmill just starting operdion in British Columbia that is probably the champion labor-saving sawmill. This lumber mill is so highly mechanized that 6nly one man, thi sawyer, operates the whole front end of the mill, including the log deck, the "nigger," all the carriage operations such as dogging and setting, in addition to manipulating the carriage. There are no men on the log deck or the carriage. The entire mill is electrically operated, and from his regular location, the sawyer operates the whole works. All the controls are at his finger tips.

A six wire trolley over the carriage carries the power for dogging, setting, and receding. Most of this new equipment was designed and perfected by the personnel of the mill company. The headrig is a circular. The mill cuts about 45,000 feet of lumber in 8 hours, with just the one nuln on the saw and carriage end of the plant. The mill was built and operated by a veteran concern, the Robert McNair Shingle Company, and is located at Port Moody,

B.C. I read the story in The Prairie Lumberman, WinniPeg' canada'

Art Benson, lumberman of Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, is a modern day philosopher. He says it is easier to save money now than ever before; during the war you could go without a pound of steak and a pound of butter and save 85 cents, but now you can go without them and save two dollars. He thinks the Government should print more two dollar bills so that a man could buy a dollar's worth of something without breaking a five. And he is grateful that his old car is still in good condition; everything about it makes " "oj".; except the horn.

Mr. Benson's idea of saving money by going without things, is rather intriguing. Carry the same thought further, and it gets more so. For instance, a few years back you could go without a new pair of shoes and save eight dollars. Today you could go without that same pair of shoes and save twenty dollars. You could go without a new Ford and save nine hundred dollars. Today you can go without a new Ford and-(if the car you go without is on a used car lot) you can save around twenty-five hundred dollars. The possibilities are unlimited. Perhaps I'd better stop before someone starts figuring how much a man can save by going without lumber.

Reminds me of the time years back when the Government was paying farmers and other producers not to produce, in order to help the price situation. Someone asked my old friend Frank Bonner if h-- would be willing to enter into a contract with the Government not to make lumber at a fat price per thousand. He said he not only would be willing to do it, but he would go farther and make it retroactive for many years back, jf;"a*,o show his cooperation.

Perhaps I'd better quit before I completely lose control of this economic discussion.

Burbcnk Building Permits

Burbank, Calif., Nov. 2.-Building permits for October were the largest of any month this year and the highest since I\fay, 1914, according to the Burbank Building Department. A total of. $2,661,440 in permits rvere issued during October. The record sum for October pushed the year's total to $12,646,948. A year ago the total was $11,892.487.