The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1911-05-05

Is AMBITIOUS 10 make IOr himself
satisfactory place among the success
tul breadwinners with whom he comes
In contact.
The numbering business takes In
everything from cutting down trees in
the woods to selling the finished prod
uct to the man who has lumber yard
In your home town, and there is such
q great variety of occupations con-
nected with it that your boy, having
decided that he wants to be lumber
man, may select his own line of adj
vancement. 1t is up to him in the be-
ginning to say whether he would pre-
fer to be an Office clerk, or to handle
an ak in the woods, or to pile boards
In a lumber yard; or to be an engineer
or machnist in a mill or a salesman
or buyer or dealer in timber land.
No matter which branch he may
choose, there is plenty of room at the
top If he will only exercise reason
able amount of industry and stick-to-it-
lveness.
Strictly speaking, however, lum-
herman is generally taken to be the
man who owns a sawmill and disposes
Of his product In large markets. There
fore this is the department to which I
shall devote myself in trying to show
the steps that must be taken to reach
lofty place in the industrial world.
The biggest end Of any business is
the marketing or selling of the prod
uct, for no producer can thrive unless
he can dispose of his wares profltably.
This makes numbering sort of para
dox; for the owners Of the biggest saw
mills, the most successful lumbermen,
are not always the greatest experts in
the mechanical phases of their mills,
the ones who know most about lumber
production technically; but may be the
ones so clever and experienced that
they can so handle their shipments as
20 sell at greater profit than their
competitors. Let us say that your boy,
not caring much for mechanics, has
taken up this line.
All that is necessary for him to do
Is to get Job with the lumberman in
the home town. If you live in a vii
lage, so much the better; for then his
experience will be more varied. He
will have to help unload and pile the
lumber and shingles that come in to
replenish the stock. check of, accord
ing to board measurement, the in
voices, help in keeping the books of
accounts, assist in figuring up the
price at which the lumber must be
sold in order to realize an adequate
profit, sell to local contractors and
builders, etc. And for all this he will
be paid what his employer thinks he
earns, possibly $50 a month or so. If
he should be employed In a city yard
he would get from $40 to $50 after he
had acquired some ability.
1t will require year or so before
your boy begins to realize some of the
possibilities of his chosen lifework He
has been learning all he can about
numbering, of course, and will be a
diligent reader of the lumber trade pa
pers that come into the Office, which
will inform him of the proceedings of
various manufacturing and selling as
sociations throughout the country and
conditions all over the field
This study is most important for
thus he will be solving serious prob
lem affecting his own firm. If he be-
comes student of freight rates and
manufacturing conditions, he will find
plenty Of opportunity to use his brains
to the advantage of his employer. For
Instance, he may discover that,
through local conditions, the mill men
In some parts Of the country are over
stocked with lumber and are willing
to accept offers below list price. He
knows the freight rates from that mill
10 his own town. Thus telegram or
der1ng carload of this or that may
result in saving of $40 to $50 or
more, enough to change close shave
Into really profitable business.
By the time your boy has become
acquainted with the various kinds of
lumber sold in your town and learned
the yard business sufficiently we'll TO
be able to handle all departments
without any directions from anybody,
unless he should prefer to stay until
he becomes a member of the firm
which he probably would be in time
he should go to some large railroad
center in the east or middle west,
where he will find wholesale lumber
ing an important business, and get a
job. There should not be any special
difficulty in doing this, for he will have
met numerous lumber statesmen when
he was in the home yard and will
probably have secured their assistance
In making the move.
Here his work will be that of clerk.
attending to the volume Of orders and
invoices and correspondence with mill
men, railroads and retailers. II he is
with a firm that has an extensive trade
he will be doing business with all
parts of the country, from buying car
loads of lumber and shingles in the
states of Washington and Texas and
Michigan and Maine. to selling it to
the government for drydock to be
built Oh Tho Panama canal OF. TO re-