The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-27
LUMBER TRADE
 TAKES HOLIDAY Usual Season Quiet Prevails In
 Timber Field J E. DEFEBAUGH TALKS Greatly Improved Conditions Are Ex. pected After the Beginning of An other Year-Lumbermen
 Hopeful for Future.
J E. DEFEBAUGH TALKS
By A. C. AYLEsMoRTH.


 ing country report that there has been a perceptible slackening of business dur ing the week or two before the Christ mas holidays, accompanied by corre- spending easing of market quotations This relaxation of the trade does not at all parta1e of the nature of a slump, but Is merely one of the ordinary swings of the easy going pendulum that marks the ebb and flow of business.
 The holidays are at hand and 1t was to be expected that there would be some cessation of activity on that account. The natural effect of the season is accentuated by the further fact that the export mar ket has shown some decline of late; and 1t is true that since the late resumption of lumber activity after a year of idle ness the mills of this territory have found in the export trade larger avenue for the disposal of their stocks than ever before, and the fluctuations of the ex- port market are more influential with the mills than in former times.
 J. E. Defebaugh, editor of the American Lumberman, who has been in the south recently, and who makes it his business to keep his finger on the pulse of the lumber trade throughout the south and west, has this to say concerning condi- tions generally as he has observed them:
 "The lumber trade this time is some what of a holiday character. It is not of large volume, but is fairly satisfactory in view of the near approach of the hol- idays. There has been a considerable in- crease in the production of yellow pine lumber during the past few weeks, but the growing trade during that period has lead to a approximately greater decrease of stocks at the mills With the im- proved conditions in the money market and the general tendency to resume oper- ations by the manufacturing industries, I thing I can safely prophecy an en- larged volume of lumber business throughout the country for the next 12 months and a considerable increase of trade with the southern countries, as well as with England and the continent"
 The expectations of MT. Defebaugh with respect to improve a condition after the first of the year are fully shared by those connected with the trade in this part of the country.
 The town of Richton, on the Mobile Jackson and Kansas City road just south of Laurel promises to soon come to the front as one of the centers of the lum- Der trade of this part of the country. It already has four or five mills of no small capacity, all cutting on full time, and travelling men rank Richton right up with the magic city of Bogalusa, La, as an example of the commercial poten- tialities of the lumber business when con- centrated at one point, with the difference in favor of Richton that while Bogalusa has but one large mill upon which to depend for sustenance, Richton has sev- eral independent esta blishments that in- sure the prosperity of the place for long time to come. But now Richton is to have another big mill that will rank along with the largest in this part of the world. It will be put in by Bentley and Emery, who come from Pennsylvania, the home of many of the most successful lumber operators of the south. They are experienced in the sawmilling business and have been successful werever they have operated. Their Richton plant will have capacity of 150,0O0 feet per day and will employ some 250 hands.
 At the December sitting of the chan cery court at Waynesboro, Miss, a de- cree was entered empowering E. F. Bal lard, receiver of the West-King Lumber company, to advertise and sell the prop erty for the benefit of creditors, and an inventory of the property is now being taken and the sale will take place the first Monday in February. The mill owes the old bank of Waynesboro about s75,- coo, and it was this debt that caused the suspension of the bank last June, and necessltated the bank, in order to reopen, to issue certificates of deposit to deposit tors for their balances due, based upon collecting this West-Key debt, the bank later closing permanently as the result of second run being made upon it; and since then matters have been in a tangle of litigation, the last court having now come to the rescue by ordering the sale of the bill property.
 The total debt hanging over the mill is something like s375,0OO, but it is claimed that the value of the property Is something like million dollars. The outstanding certificates of deposit of the defunct bank amount to about the mills total indebtedness to that in- stitution, and are about the only de- posits the bank has. Depositors hope that sale for sum near the real value of the plant will be made.
 Intense interest is felt in this part of the country in the merger of the Edward Hines and Weirhauser proper ties as reported in the press from up north. The Weirhausers have never been extensive buyers of pine stumpage in Mississippi, though they do own sew real tracts in this state. But Edward Hines Is an extensive holder of Missis- sippi pine lands, the development of which promises to create something of a revolution in the railroad and com mercial conditions in the southern part of the pine belt.
 The Hines tracts extend, with inter- ruptions. all the way from the gulf coast on up to Poplarville and Lamar county and on west to where the Good year holding begin. Something over a year ago the Hines company made ar engagements for the construction of a railroad that was to tap all tn cir tim Der and furnish new commercial line into Gulfport and on over to Colum- bia and perhaps to the Mississippi river, maybe at Natchez; and Capt. J. T. Jones' the Gulfport magnate, fairly divided the harbor facilities of his port with the Hines road, granting them access to tn harbor and the privi- lege of building another pier out to the anchorage basin, the effect of which would have been to double the accom- modations of Gulfport and it's impor- tance as lumber shipping point. But the financial slump came on and the Hines project was shelved for the time.
 It Is not known how extensive may be the merger of the Hines and Weir