A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN OF CONQUEST IN YELLOW PINE.
Many persons are disposed to regard the manufacture of lumber as an enterprise similar to those involved in the production of other commodities. To the mind of the uninitiated all that is necessary is to secure the umber, build a mill and set it in operation. To the practical operator these are but steps, and not always the most difficult ones, toward the goal. Cotton mills, iron foundries, furniture factories and other similar institutions need only to provide facilities for turning the raw material into the finished article of commerce. The managers of such institutions need not give any thought to the raw supplies which many stand ready to furnish f.o.b. the mill. The question of labor in so far as the supply is concerned gives them little concern. They are not required to house or to feed these employees nor to devise ways and means of providing for their comfort. Their attention may be centered solely in perfecting and carrying on the manufacturing operation per se.

The individual or concern contemplating engaging in the lumber manufacturing business is confronted by vastly different conditions. Such operators are brought face to face with all the problems of modern commerce; it might almost be said with all the problems of modern life. The first step to be taken by the prospective manufacturer of lumber is to secure the timber. Then a survey of the holdings is made and a suitable location for the plant and town is selected. It is necessary to bear in mind not only the topography of the timber land so as to make the mill operation as convenient as possible but the suitability of the site for the homes of several hundred or several thousand people must also be taken into consideration.

After these questions are satisfactorily disposed of plans must be formulated and contracts let for the construction of a mill. At the same time work is begun on the logging road, the main lines of which must be laid out with a view of securing the best returns for the least expenditure of labor and motive power. It is necessary to plan all these matters in advance so that the labor will not be multiplied and that the timber on the land may be harvested at the lowest possible cost. With the mill constructed and the logging road under way the next work is to plan and build the town. Stores, dwellings, offices and other necessary facilities must be provided. The manufacturer of lumber is not a manufacturer only. He is a railroad builder and operator; a storekeeper, and the ruler of an estate equal in area and complexity of difficulties encountered to many counties.

In a well ordered manufacturing plant everything seems to run itself. Some phases of the work appear to be conducted in a haphazard, go-as-you-please manner, yet underneath it all are the plans and purposes of the builder, and if the plans are wise and the purpose firm the result is for the benefit of many people. But if the plans are faulty and the purpose weak the result is inevitable failure.

This week the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN is pleased to give publicity to an illustrated story of a successful yellow pine manufacturing institution. Those who follow closely the history of the wonderful progress made by those in charge of the Southern Pine Lumber Company will find briefly outlined the results secured by a concern whose head has had the ability to formulate and carry out its plans. They will find that the lumber manufacturing process involves the construction and operation of a railroad, the building of school houses and churches, the establishment of mammoth manufacturing plants, electric light service, waterworks and many other of the so called modern conveniences. In small towns and cities the men who put in electric light plants or waterworks, who build churches and schools, are looked upon as having created something. In this great operation, however, as in others, such work is merely incidental to the great problem of gathering together the people and facilities to produce lumber.

Through the instrumentality of the camera the reader is carried around the town, the yards and mills, along the railroad and out into the timber of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, and from different angles of vision is shown the property in the various phases of the work as it is being conducted. With written words he is made acquainted with the gradual building up of this vast institution and given a concrete idea of what its operation involves.

In justification of those who prepared the article it should be understood that they too followed out the various incidents of the development, comprehending the plans and purposes of the directors and recognizing the importance of each department of the work. They too mentally built the railroad, the mill and the village and, furthermore, reversing progress, they carried the work back to the point where the first tree was felled and still further back to the time when the cruisers ranged over the land estimating the value of its standing timber—back to the undisturbed forest primeval.

While the Southern Pine Lumber Company is notable for the vast progress it has made it also is notable for another accomplishment rare in lumber circles. It is called the Southern Pine Lumber Company and yet it is one of the few pine manufacturing institutions which have successfully engaged in the manufacture of hardwood lumber at the same time. It produces not only yellow pine in all its multiplicity of grades and sizes but also high grade hardwoods which throughout the south are found mixed in with the pine to a greater or less degree. This fact alone makes the institution an extraordinary one, but there are other features of its growth and progress which must compel the attention if not the admiration of those who this week are given opportunity to acquaint themselves with its history.

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PRESENT IN MAKING PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
The magnificent illustrated descriptive article which appears in this issue of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN has already received review elsewhere in the editorial pages, but the fact that after serious consideration the present time should have been deliberately chosen for the publication of such an article appears to be worthy of special comment.

It is well understood that the lumber trade, as regards both manufacturers and the lumber retailing and consuming sections of the industry, is experiencing a breathing spell such as it has not been able to indulge in for the last few bustling years, even during the comparative quietude of the winter season. But, while at this time the volume of active transactions is small, it by no means follows that the individual lumbermen have gone into a state of hibernation; on the contrary, most of them are busy summing up the results of their labors and studying them with a view to securing even better results, if possible, for the future. The annual season of stock inventories and balance sheets has to do, not primarily with the past but with the future. No man by taking thought of these matters can in any way change the results of the past. All he can do is to note its successes and failures in order that in the future he may copy after and improve upon the one and as far as may be possible avoid the other. It is probable that more attention is being given to this matter at present than has been in any other January in several years, and that such leisure time as may be afforded under present conditions is largely being profitably utilized in keen thought and study in planning for the future.

The retail lumber yard managers of the country, like the other individual factors of the trade, are therefore in a particularly receptive mood for any suggestions which may be for their future trade benefit, and while they may not be actively placing lumber orders in large volume they are largely formulating policies which will guide them in their future lumber purchasing and selling activities. They are overhauling their stocks and deciding what items it may be profitable to add and what items it may perhaps be desirable to carry henceforth in smaller or larger supply. They are studying the columns of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN weekly with more care in order to secure valuable trade suggestions which in a more busy season might escape their notice on account of other demands upon their time.

It is probable, therefore, that in view of all these considerations the pages of pictures and text which appear in this issue of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN will receive more careful and interested attention and by a much larger number of the readers of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN than might perhaps have been the case at any other time when they might have been presented to their attention.

IN THE FIRST PLACE.
In the first place, Mr. Reader, you have made a very great mistake in your original idea that this is another one of those illustrative exploitations, just like So-and-So's, or just like Somebody's else, for this article which follows is just about as different in its details and its generalities from the average descriptive article of similar character as one similar thing can be from another that it in any way resembles.

About this the writer can give abundant advice and considerable exact information, because as a matter of fact the Word Carpenter and the picture making Architect plaster up the holes in the cornerstone of each of these edifices of Art and Investigation the very last thing they do. The roof has been put on long ago, the studdings and rafters and floors and window openings and interior furnishings of this House of Description have all been put in place, and. even the gilded weather vane has been turning gently in the winter winds a considerable length of time before this cornerstone of an introduction even began to be chipped from the mental quarry.

The introduction, in other words, is the very last thing done, so you see the writer is competent to give the reader advice as to what is to follow.

The story of the evolution of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, which is now in the fourteenth year of its history, might be called "The Different Story''- if it were desired to epitomize a title.

This whole affair will be a surprise to 90 percent of not only the retailers but the wholesale trade in yellow pine lumber; quite as much of a surprise as it was to the photographic and writing men who have sojourned for some weeks in the counties of Angelina, Houston, Trinity, Cherokee and Anderson, Texas, accumulating the pictures and the information for the purpose of erecting this somewhat extensive edifice of paper and printer's ink.

You all know of the Southern Pine Lumber Company in a general way, but it has proceeded with its evolution with such rapid steps, has come up from the low ground to the high lands in commercial endeavor so swiftly, and yet with such certain growth, that to hundreds of its contemporaries and to thousands of its friends this story which follows will seem almost fabulous.

At Diboll has been accomplished the successful manufacture of yellow pine and hardwood lumber on one and the same saw mill, and that alone ought to be enough inducement to any one who has read thus far to complete the reading of the story.

These is no desire to thunder in the index and play pianissimo in the paragraphs, but it is desired that the many readers of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN be given some knowledge in this brief introduction of what they may expect to find in the story.

There is no desire, however, to tell it all in the headlines, but if you wish to learn bow a great business has been evolved from nothing to millions in fourteen years' time, and to know how a little desk room in Texarkana has in that time grown into a Yellow Pine Barony in Texas, take the writer's word for it and read on to the end.

EARLY HISTORY.
As will be seen by the brief biographical sketch of T. L. L. Temple, the founder of Diboll, which will follow this division of this article, the history of the Southern Pine Lumber Company has been largely the history of one man in an endeavor to build up an honest, unpretentious but paying business in the manufacture and distribution of yellow pine lumber.

The theory of evolution has never been carried to greater fruition in commercial affairs in this country than in the rise and progress of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, so will be shown how every department of this business has begun at the small and grown to the large. Each section of the story will be a series of steps upward.

Each year the Southern Pine Lumber Company has found itself on the firing line considerably advanced as to location as compared with the firing line of the previous year.

The Southern Pine Lumber Company of Texas was organized in 1893 with an authorized capital stock of $50,000, of which less than $25,000 was paid up. It was reorganized in June, 1902, with an authorized capital stock of $300,000. In July, 1906, the capital stock was increased to $600,000. In June, 1907, it was increased to $750,000.

As a Lumber Selling Proposition.
The Southern Pine Lumber Company as a lumber selling proposition, or a wholesale concern, had existed previous to 1893 at Texarkana, Ark., and it was in those previous years that this company learned the business art of marketing yellow pine lumber. It has had for a decade and a half a prowess in that line head and shoulders over any other yellow pine distributing concern in its particular locality. It has more than any other lumber concern handling yellow pine a right to lay claim to the first use of the word "Southern" in its business name.

Back in 1888, 1889 and 1890 the Southern Pine Lumber Company—the partnership—meant only a little square of office space in a long room on the ground floor of an office building opposite the Benefield hotel in Texarkana, Tex. The first Southern Pine Lumber Company partnership consisted of T. L. L. Temple, C. M. Putnam and Ben Whitaker.

Mr. Temple soon became the sole owner of the business and the office was removed to the Arkansas side of Texarkana, to the second floor of the office building then located, as is the present building, on the corner of Broad street and State Line avenue.

When a new building was erected on the same spot in 1905 the Southern Pine Lumber Company leased practically the whole south front of the second floor of the edifice, where today is still carried on the selling end of the business.

The Beginning of Manufacture.
The Southern Pine Lumber Company bought from J. C. Diboll, in Angelina county, 7,000 acres of timber land in 1893. This first purchase was bought on a stumpage basis at 75 cents a thousand, and then and there it became the cornerstone of the subject of this illustrated article.

The company was allowed a reasonable time in which to cut this timber, having been compelled to remove only about 800,000 feet a month, log measure, the time for removal to begin after it had erected a mill.

The town of Diboll was located and laid out by Mr. Temple at a point on the Houston, East & West Texas railway 107 miles north of Houston and 128 miles south of Shreveport, this town having been located at a convenient spot in the first purchase of 7,000 acres of stumpage.

The company put in a single circular mill of 50,000 feet daily capacity, which was run until it became necessary to build the present "No. 1 mill" in 1903.

The first mill began running in June, 1894. In 1897 —early in the year—the next notable purchase of timber was made, also in Angelina county, consisting of 8,000 acres.

The second mill referred to began running in June, 1903, and is a double band affair.

In 1898 the Southern Pine Lumber Company had already bought of W. N. Atwood a narrow gage railroad six or seven miles in length, which then became the basis for the general traffic lines known as the Texas Southeastern railroad, which, being a collateral matter, is described elsewhere in this article under a separate head.

Thirteen Years of Active Life.
All of the advance that the Southern Pine Lumber Company has made in its thirteen years of active life has been built around the principle of "Buy timber, buy timber, buy timber."

Since the inception of the company no year has passed in which it has not purchased more timber than it has cut, as evidenced by the facts outlined in the story of the timber.

The company has always employed skilled men to do this branch of the work, and attributes much of its success—in fact, the main portion of its success—to this policy.

THE MAIN VERTEBRAE.
Every building that remains level has a solid foundation; every circumference has a center; every human or animal central vertebrae; every machine floor a central line shaft; every corporation of importance, however impersonal may be its parts, some one man who not only stands nominally at its head but is actually its chief factor. Although no man appreciates or acknowledges the intelligent work of his lieutenants more substantially than does T. L. L. Temple, president of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, he is nevertheless the central figure in its growth and evolution and the one person above all others who has been at all times in the watch tower, scanning the field with trained eye in preparation for all exigencies that might arise that might stunt the growth, or on the other hand might assist the growth, of this concern.

By Ancestry a Huguenot.
Thomas Lewis Latane Temple, of Texarkana, Ark., was born in Essex county, Virginia, and is of Huguenot ancestry. He left Virginia in 1876 and took up his residence in Arkansas.

His first Arkansas experience was farming, but it was not to his fancy. For a time he was deputy-clerk of Little River county and circuit courts. In 1887 he became a bookkeeper in Texarkana, where he found employment in that capacity for various firms until 1881. In that year Mr. Temple became interested in a little saw mill at Wayne, Tex. This was his first saw mill experience.

In 1887 Mr. Temple became a member of the Atlanta Lumber Mills Company, of Atlanta, Tex., and after that, in 1891, he organized the Southern Pine Lumber Company, a partnership referred to more explicitly in the department of history in this article.

Distinctively a Lumberman.
Mr. Temple is distinctively a lumberman and has so few outside interests that they form nothing worthy of note in this exploitation. His chief active business is all the duties, pleasures and burdens that go with being president of the Southern Pine Lumber Company.

In the years to come Mr. Temple may be a leading oil producer or a leading coal and lignite producer of Texas, but those of his interests are today undeveloped and will remain undeveloped yet many years.

Mr. Temple is owner of one-third of the stock of the Garrison-Norton Lumber Company, of Pineland, Tex., an active manufacturing lumber concern behind which is 150,000,000 feet of timber. Mr. Temple also owns personally 500,000,000 feet of yellow pine stumpage in the southern part of Sabine county, Texas, which is of the longleaf variety and runs between 10,000 and 12,000 feet to the acre.

Mr. Temple spends a great deal of his time during the fall and winter months at Diboll; in fact, divides his time between the selling department at Texarkana and the yellow pine milling business at Diboll. For the last eight years he has spent his summers in the vicinity of Manhattan island. Chiefly, though, his recreation has been his business, and he is yet actively interested in and cognizant of all its ramifications to an extent which means much for the business and in itself guarantees the highest character of business success for the enterprises under his supervision.

The Active Personnel.
The officials of the Southern Pine Lumber Company are T. L. L. Temple, president, Texarkana, Ark.; William Temple, vice president, Fulton, Ark.; L. D. Gilbert, secretary and treasurer, Texarkana, Ark.

Watson Walker is general manager at Diboll, Tex., and W. M. Ashford is assistant general manager. John A. Massingill has general charge of all timber buying; Jodie Kirby is woods superintendent; J. H. Hall is in charge of the tie department; Emmett Massingill is team foreman at Camp 1; Major Norman is team foreman at Camp 2.

Charles Fredreck is superintendent of mills and manufacture; D. E. Chipps is manager of the hardwood department; M. H. Rodgers is hardwood saw mill foreman; the sawyers are Frank E. Greenwood and S. M. Evans at mill No. 1 and George Ogle at mill No. 2; John O'Hara and John Baltzer are filers at those two mills. S. E. Lingard is shipping manager in the yellow pine end and Moses Prewit assistant shipping manager, while A. H. Bunch is hardwood shipping clerk. Robert Weeks is planing mill foreman, J. W. Vaughan lumber checker, Clem Wright lumber checker, R. B. Tucker has charge of green lumber from the saw mills, Luther Glass is manager of dry kilns and rough sheds and C. H. Bateman has charge of pipes and pipe work.

C. L. Effinger is office manager; William Effinger is paymaster; E. H. Crossen invoice clerk.

At the head of the mercantile department is W. P. Rutland and, under Mr. Rutland, Lane Johnson is manager of store at Camp 1 and John L. Effinger manager of store at Camp 2.

A Great Birdseye View.
With considerable pleasure is printed herewith the largest freehand drawing of a lumber plant ever printed within the covers of a trade publication. While this drawing is freehand, that does not carry with it in any sense that it is a licensed affair. In no other way than this could the whole sweep of this wonderful plant at Diboll, Tex., be brought under the eye at one observation. Those who expect to read further in this article should study well this birdseye view, for it is a plain and open key to all the story which follows in the accompanying text.

The point of view occupied by the artist who made the drawing for this engraving was technically at an elevation of 100 feet to the northeast of the plant at Diboll, and if the reader will put himself in that imaginary position he will have no difficulty in understanding the Southern Pine Lumber Company at Diboll in all its ramifications.

The Great Sheds.
Let us take a little walk around, beginning at the general store at the left hand center, which is plainly marked. Remember that the long lines of sheds to the right -- marked rough lumber sheds -- run on a line just about north and south, and then-you will have no difficulty in gathering the direction. On a line with the store, coming to the northeast, is the office, so marked, and after that, dropping down toward the regular foreground another step, is the first pictured elevation of the fine library and rest house that will soon be erected at Diboll, complete plans of which are further elaborated in this article and an explanation of which will be found farther along in the text.

The long line of cars to the absolute left of the picture, running from the store almost down to the foreground margin, indicates the main line of the Houston, East & West Texas railway.

Back of the library is the planing mill, and all along the front of the planing mill, clear up behind the general store as far as the dressed lumber and molding sheds, clear down past the warehouse near the library, past the lath sheds, directly north of these tracks and running clear to the absolute front of the picture, are the commodious shipping tracks of the Texas Southeastern railroad, and right near the margin is the Texas Southeastern railroad depot. Directly above this depot are the commodious machine shops of this road and, letting the eye follow directly back, we strike the twelve modern and efficient kilns, and back of them the largest yellow pine rough lumber shed in the world.

That Which Dominates.
Returning to the foreground, and crossing over to the right, near the edge of the pond, stand the general offices of the Texas Southeastern railroad, from which all the business of the road is transacted Saw mill No. 1, which is distinctively the yellow pine saw mill, is so designated and dominates the foreground of the picture. Back of that is the refuse burner and back of that, a hundred feet to the right of the absolute center of the picture, is the great steel water tower which dominates all the works of this manufacturing plant.

On the extreme right of the picture, about half way from the lower right hand corner to the upper right hand skyline, stands the latest creation in a saw mill way, erected by the Southern Pine Lumber Company — the "No. 2" or hardwood saw mill. Dropping below the skyline, filling two-thirds of the upper center of the picture, are the great yellow pine and hardwood lumber yards.

All this is a fair and equitable representation in an outline way of the saw milling properties of the Southern Pine Lumber Company and has been created and printed in this way to illustrate the great facilities of that company in the production of lumber from all merchantable trees and the facilities it possesses to put that lumber expeditiously upon the consuming market.

This great bird's-eye view is only a simple introduction to the feast that will follow.

TIMBER POSSESSIONS.
It would be much like attempting to irrigate the desert of Sahara with a quart of rain water, with the hope that the desert waste would be turned into a daisy bespangled meadow, to attempt to describe within the small compass of the limited space allowed the vast timber possessions of the Southern Pine Lumber Company in heavily forested Texas counties.

Like many other features of this institution, the timber advantages of the Southern Pine Lumber Company are not understood or appreciated by the great lumber consuming public, and as timber is the basic principle of all saw mill operations, wherever situated, a cursory examination of the holdings of this institution will be of deep interest to the intelligent reader.

An Outline Map.
For the double purpose of exploiting the timber and showing the traffic possibilities of the Texas Southeastern railroad has been especially created and is here printed an outline map of the five counties in southeastern Texas which contain the timber possessions of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, beginning on a line drawn near the west boundary of Anderson county and just north of the north line of Cherokee county, and running east through Rusk county, across to the state line, thence south to include the whole of Trinity county.

Beginning at a point on the Neches river a few miles south of Diboll, for a southeastern base, dropping down to within a few miles of Groveton, in Trinity county, for a southwestern base, and running over into the heart of Angelina county close up to the line of the Tyler division of the Cotton Belt road, the timber possessions of this company have a beginning and general base which sweeps up along through the valley of the Neches river, from Trinity and Angelina counties, into Houston, Cherokee and Anderson counties, and broadens out again into a northwestern base within a few miles of Palestine, Tex., and the main line of the International & Great Northern railway, forming an almost solid strip of timber land fifty-five miles in length with an average breadth of four and one-half miles—truly a Commercial Barony in the vast expanse of the Empire of Yellow Pine.

In Five Counties.
The Southern Pine Lumber Company since the beginning of its operations, in these five counties named, in 1893, has bought and still owns in fee simple 124,653 acres of timber lands, containing short and longleaf pine timber and valuable hardwoods. It has bought also the timber on 84,668 acres of land in this district, which would make the total timber possessions today 209,313 acres had none been cut in the meantime. There has been removed, however, from the fee simple lands the timber from 20,000 acres, and from the lands where forest growth alone was purchased the timber from 37,115 acres.

A close and careful statement of the actual possessions of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, as they stand today, made by John A. Massingill, expert timber buyer in the employ of the company, shows that in the possession of this concern are 1,150,000,000 feet of standing yellow pine, principally of the shortleaf variety, and not less than 175,000,000 feet of hardwoods, the latter running 60 percent to oak, 30 percent to gum and 10 percent to hickory.

Timber for Thirty Years.
Considering the absolute night and day capacity of the mills now in operation at Diboll, Tex., if those mills should run steadily night and day, day in and day out, night in and night out, month in and month out, season in and season out, stopping only for Sundays and holidays, this timber could be turned into lumber between this writing, in November, 1907, and July, 1937. If the reader who is fond of figuring will but take a few minutes of time, and obtain elsewhere in this article the various single capacities of the various plants described, he will have no difficulty in ascertaining that the statement is true.

This part of the story has been told with a view of impressing the reader with the comprehensive character of this business, and yet there cannot be told, in relating the simple lumber story, anything like the importance of the vast resources of this territory.

But a few minutes' ride from Diboll are many hundreds of acres of undoubted oil lands, which will not be developed until the lumbering shall have advanced many years. Underlying many sections of the Southern Pine Lumber Company's lands in one of the far northwestern counties are vast fields of lignite of a high quality. Only about one mile removed from the line of the Texas Southeastern railroad are great natural deposits of rock which, a little later, will be opened for use as ballast and for even more extensive commercial uses as desired.

End Problematical.
The most pointed pencil cannot figure the actual end of this operation at Diboll in the matter of lumber production from the timber described, but can only hope to figure the theoretical end, which will fall no one can tell how many years short; this because the Southern Pine Lumber Company people have—without protestation—indulged in practical forestry by leaving the unripened yet marketable trees for a second if not a third cutting. The writer saw much of the first cut over lands and can testify to the fact that it will be but a few more years until the swish of the crosscut saw can be heard there again and undoubtedly with profit.

Uniform in Quality.
The quality of the yellow pine is of a uniform high class, and the retailer who purchases the product of the Southern Pine Lumber Company may depend upon the "Neches Valley" brand for the characteristics "high quality and uniformity."

The hardwoods have been manufactured just long enough at Diboll to show that they are also of the highest Standard known to the general hardwood trade of the world. Many photographic specimens are shown in engravings herewith to prove the general statements made concerning the Southern Pine Lumber Company products.

THE TEXAS SOUTHEASTERN RAILROAD.
The charter under which the Texas Southeastern railroad was built and is being operated provides for a main line from Diboll, a station on the Houston, East & West Texas railway in Angelina county, to Weches, in Houston county. Weches is a few miles south of Palestine, where the offices and shops of the International & Great Northern railroad are located. Two branch lines are provided; one beginning at Blix, seven miles northwest from Diboll, and extending ten miles northeast to Lufkin, the county seat of Angelina county. At this point this branch connects with the St. Louis Southwestern railway, and again with the Houston, East & West Texas railway. The latter is a part of the Southern Pacific system. The second branch line begins at Vair, eleven miles northwest of Diboll, and will extend south to Everett, in San Jacinto county. This line will intersect the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway at or near Groveton, the county seat of Trinity county.

The Country Traversed.
The country traversed by the main line is rich in pine and hardwood timber, little of which has been cut. Practically all of that which remains standing belongs to the Southern Pine Lumber Company. In addition to the timber, the country contains fine farming and fruit lands, and in the Neches valley are found some of the finest cotton producing lands in the south. Adjoining this valley are the famous vegetable and fruit lands of Jacksonville, which are only partially developed on account of lack of railroad facilities for the marketing of the produce, but the opening up of the country by the Texas Southeastern railroad will give to these lines a fine outlet in every direction.

The country traversed by the Lufkin branch is similar to that tributary to the main line, but is more fully developed. Most of this land is under cultivation and there remain only a few thousand acres of standing timber, the property of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, The land along this Lufkin branch has doubled in value since the survey was made for this line. The country to be traversed by the Everett branch is valuable in timber and farming lands, the timber being the property principally of the Southern Pine Lumber Company. This branch will intersect the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway and the Beaumont & Great Northern railroad, and the three will ultimately form a short line from Lufkin to Houston.

Twenty miles of the main line and ten miles of the Lufkin branch are now in operation, and in addition to this the company is operating twenty miles of logging road spurs which are used for delivering logs from the woods operations to the main line. The logging spurs are temporary and are moved from place to place as fast as it is found that the timber is cut.

Economical Handling of Freight.
The Texas Southeastern is being constructed so that it can handle economically all the business offered, its ruling grade being 1 percent, which is five-tenths of 1 percent lower than the ruling grade of any other important railroad running into Lufkin. In the matter of curves it is favorably located, its maximum curves being four degrees, and only two of these are on the lines in operation.

All streams are crossed on pile trestles, the longest being the one over the Neches river, which is 1,834 feet in length and has 14-foot bents except over the channel. The channel is crossed by 28-foot bents, having eight cords 8 inches by 16 inches by 28 feet. These cords are trussed by four 1-1/2-inch rods of steel, which rods are continuous across all the 28-foot bents and pass over steel plates on top of the cords, over each cap and under a 12-inch by 12-inch by 12-foot timber, bolted to the bottom of the cords midway of each span. These rods are kept tight by turn-buckles in each bent and strengthen the trestle materially.

The Texas Southeastern railroad is laid with 56-pound steel on 6x8-inch by 8-foot ties, spaced eighteen ties to the rail, with the entire track on sand ballast.

The Motive Power.
The motive power of the Texas Southeastern road consists of eight locomotives. The value of the locomotives as units of power is indicated in the following table:


ENGINE NUMBER Tractive power ... Ton weight, without tender
1 ......... 13,000 .... 30
2 ......... 14.000 .... 33
3 ......... 16,000 .... 38
4 ......... 17,200 .... 44
5 ......... 19,200 .... 50
6 ......... 18,500 .... 42
7 ......... 19,200 .... 50
8 ......... 20,380 .... 45 -- Including tank.


The company now has in service 135 cars. In addition to those in service the company is building thirty new logging cars having 4-1/2x8-inch journals and a capacity of 60,000 pounds each. The material for all these cars is now in the shops and they will be in service early in 1908.

The company maintains a shop in Diboll for the purpose of building cars and repairing the damaged rolling stock, both cars and locomotives. The shop is equipped with the following machinery: One engine, 10x12 inches; one 600-pound steam trip hammer, total weight of machine 12,000 pounds; one 28-inch by 20-foot lathe machine; one 14-inch by 8-foot lathe; one 6x20-inch back geared shaver; one bolt cutter; one 24-inch drill press; one band saw; one jig saw for cutting shafting and piping; one fan and two blacksmith forges; one 24,000-pound rail straightener and one 5-ton crane for handling broken cars.

The Present Business.
The business of the Texas Southeastern railroad at present consists principally in handling the logs and lumber for the Southern Pine Lumber Company's plant at Diboll. In addition to this the company has considerable business to and from the stations on its line.

The officers of the Texas Southeastern railroad are: T. L. L. Temple, president; W. J. Raef, Diboll, Tex., vice president and traffic manager; George Webber, Texarkana, Ark., general counsel; Watson Walker, secretary, treasurer and general manager, and J. E. Mitchell, chief engineer, Diboll, Tex.

THE WOODS OPERATIONS.
The woods operations of the Southern Pine Lumber Company are in charge of Jodie Kirby, woods superintendent, and a cleaner, neater, better organized department for the cutting and delivering of timber to the right-of-way and loading it on cars does not exist in the yellow pine south than that about to he described.

These operations revolve about two centers known as "Camp No. 1" and "Camp No. 2." The entire operation considered as a whole is of the first grade in every particular, hence the reader should be interested in. a detailed statement of just how the logging of the Southern Pine Lumber Company is done.

There is the usual scheme of spur tracks, running like unto tree stems from the branches of the Texas Southeastern railroad, and the timber is taken to the spurs from the distance of a half mile on either side and is hauled in wagons and by slip tongue carts. The slip tongue carts are pulled by mules and the wagons hauled by oxen, the carts working back from the spurs about 400 yards, or about a quarter of a mile on either side of the tracks. The oxen are used to pull the 8-wheeled wagons which bring the logs in from the long distances. The mules bring in the long logs with the carts and the oxen deliver the shorter logs on wagons.

The Principle of Operations.
The principle of the logging operations of the Southern Pine Lumber Company exists in the fact that the company aims to deliver a certain amount of logs every working day in the year, rather than pile up an immense amount of logs during the dry season to be hauled in during the rainy season, So it is that the most accessible timber in each cutting is left to the last. This policy also undoubtedly accounts for the fact that the logging spurs, as well as the general traffic lines that haul the logs, are of higher character as to railroad construction than most logging spurs and logging railroads; this on account of the fact that they have to be good all the time, wet or dry season, winter or summer, so as to submit to the daily haul. In this manner of logging each day competes with all of the others, and the heads of the departments may be heard discussing the cost of the logging for a single day as compared with some other particular day, rather than making comparisons of one week against another or one month against another. This system of logging and log operating bookkeeping should eradicate many evils of the craft, on account chiefly of a possible daily review of the business.

Stumps Cut Low.
It is the policy of the Southern Pine Lumber Company logging department to cut stumps just as low as they can possibly be cut, seldom more than fourteen or fifteen inches above the ground. Also the loggers are instructed to trim the trees to the highest possible point, which permits even the making of a 2x4.

It is no exaggeration to say that these orders are being carried out in these operations more thoroughly than this observer has been able to find in any previous examination of logging projects. This accounts, in some measure, for the great amount of lumber that the Southern Pine Lumber Company has been able to secure from its acreage. This policy of avoidance of waste and looking after the small things pervades, however, the entire business of the company, but it is especially brought out in the logging.

Practical Forestry Methods.
A trip over all the lines of the Texas Southeastern railroad and its branches and along the spurs of the Southern Pine Lumber Company would easily convince the most skeptical that there is a method of tree cutting that is more profitable than the "sweep clean" methods employed by many yellow pine operators. The management of this operation asserts that all yellow pine lands are susceptible of a second cutting, with high class commercial results a possibility, after a lapse of from twelve to fifteen years after the first cutting.

This is shown to be true in a practical way by going through the tracts of land where the Southern Pine Lumber Company lumbered twelve and fifteen years ago and noting their condition. Inside of the next three years any acre of land cut by this concern twelve years ago will produce from 3,000 to 5,000 feet of merchantable yellow pine timber. Also there is considerable evidence that enough unripened trees can then be left to make at some future day a third cutting possible.

The Logging Equipment.
In the employ of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, in its woods operations, are altogether about 175 men, 100 of whom live at Camp No, 2, about seventeen miles from Diboll. At Camp No. 2 are seventy-five portable houses, built in the shape of large freight ears, fitted with windows, mounted on upright posts, well guarded against heat and cold, where these men and their families live. The water supply of Camp No. 2 comes from surface wells. The camp is built on a gentle rise of ground where sanitary conditions are perfect, and the health of the little community is most excellent.

To do the logging at Camp No. 2 in use are four carts, nine wagons, forty-two mules and sixteen oxen. Six miles from Camp No. 2 a stationary boom log loader is in commission, operated by six men, handling 125,000 feet of logs daily.

At Camp No. 1, located about fifteen miles from Diboll, seventy five men do the work; they live with their families in fifty-four car houses. The water supply is hauled to this camp from the Neches river. Sanitary conditions are very good and the people are comfortable and healthy.

Twenty mules and eighty oxen manipulate ten wagons and four slip tongue carts at Camp No. 1, and the logs are loaded on cars by two loaders, one of which has a swing boom and the other a stationary boom. The loaders are each operated by six men, one handling hardwoods and the other pine, the capacity of each being 125,000 feet daily.

At each of these camps is a general store, a branch of the store at Diboll, from which the employees are furnished at a reasonable rate with all the necessities of life.

Logging the Year Bound.
Logs are brought in to the log ponds of the Southern Pine Lumber Company at Diboll and if they be pine they are dumped into either log pond No. 1 or No. 2. The hardwood, logs are of course cut in the woods as they are found interspersed with the pine, but are loaded on separate cars, and if possible on separate trains. However that may be, the hardwood logs are handled into the hardwood mill in train loads, and actually from the trains, a steam device having been arranged near the haul-up end of the hardwood mill which, by means of a wire cable working over a drum, pulls the train along as it is unloaded, delivering one car at a time to the log ramp, standing so that the logs are rolled from the cars parallel with the haul-up chain. The logs go down an incline to the chain and are hauled directly up into the hardwood mill without having been delivered in either pond.

There is a definite schedule for the running or the trains to the mill from the woods by which is easily delivered the entire capacity of the mills, with a considerable overplus, figuring the mills to run day and night.

It is never the policy of the Southern Pine Lumber Company to keep an extraordinary supply of logs along the right-of-way in the woods; the normal log supply is at all times between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 feet of timber, ready for loading on the cars.

THE RAILWAY TIE DEPARTMENT.
For some years after the inception of the Texas Southeastern railroad the ties used In the construction of the road were cut under the supervision of the management of the railroad, and but little was thought of making a commercial department for the manufacture of ties for general consumption. The general demand, however, for railway ties, and the policy of the company to utilize all of its timber and lumber resources, compelled the opening of a regular tie department. It assumed formidable proportions during the spring of 1907 and since that period a varying number of tie makers have been kept at work on the shorter lived spurs of the company, cutting into ties all the hardwoods not available for hardwood lumber.

The Texas Southeastern railroad has used a large amount of the tie product in its operations during 1907. However, the accumulation of ties on the various lines of the road in shape for early shipment amounted late in November of last year to 20,000, a few gum but mostly of the various grades of tie making oak.

About sixty men are employed in the tie making department.

LOG STORAGE.
It has been learned that it is the policy of the Southern Pine Lumber Company to keep from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 feet of logs on the ramps in the woods rather than to store there any larger amount of logs at any time, and to keep its logging crews busy working day in and day out the year round rather than to make a rush of logging in the summer months, against the times when the rains descend. It is also the policy of the company to bring these logs in from day to day and to keep the fresh logs in the pond, rather than to cover the whole surface of the pond at all times with the logs, and thus reduce to a minimum the expense of picking up "sinkers."

Under no circumstances does the company lack storage room, for it could at all times keep on hand in its commodious ponds many more millions of feet of logs than it finds necessary to keep.

Even the creation of the log ponds at Diboll has an evolution that is interesting. The first pond was created there in 1894 and did not cover more than an area of an acre and a half. In 1897 the pond was enlarged to three acres in size and since that time the embankment of the pond has been raised about three feet. This is called "pond No. 1." This pond will hold about 1,000,000 feet of logs and is fed by a small stream. It is used only for storage and no water is pumped from it for use at the plant. This is the pond that travelers see from the west windows of any Houston, East & West Texas train in passing Diboll.

"Pond No. 2", one-half of which is also shown in the birdseye view, was built in 1902, largely for the purpose of increasing the water supply. It lies to the west of the other pond; it will hold about 300,000 feet of logs. Yellow pine logs are dumped into this pond direct and the hardwood logs are brought around the western boundary, but are not put into the water.

These ponds are supplied largely by rains and by the streams of water that empty into them. There is also an arrangement whereby water is pumped from Ryan's lake.

A smaller storage pond west of "pond No. 2" is used largely as a reservoir. These three ponds are connected at convenient points.

THE SAW MILLS.
The saw mills of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, two in number, are both shown in a blrdseye view referred to specifically under another heading. Mill No. 1, distinctively and exclusively a yellow pine saw mill, is the larger of the two, as will be seen by the particular description of the plant.

Mill No. 2, the latest achievement in saw mill building by this company, is the mill in which yellow pine and hardwood lumber are both manufactured. It is one of the highest types of single band mill construction.

Saw Mill No. 1.
This saw mill was built in 1903, stands in its general direction north and south and is contained in a building two and a half stories in hight and 156 by 170 feet in area. The frame of the lower floor is of 14x14 stuff and the lower story is 16 feet in the clear. On this ground floor the line shaft, 170 feet long, runs from 5-7/8 to 2-15/16 inches in diameter. There are also the two steam niggers and a mechanical hog will be installed for giving the edgings a closer mastication.

The second floor in its framing is of 12x12 and is 12 feet in the clear.

On the saw floor is a band mill with a 9-foot wheel and a 3-block carriage, propelled by a 12-inch shotgun feed, and the log deck is fitted with all appurtenances for handling lumber.

Here also is a band mill fitted with a 36-foot carriage, two head blocks and a 10-inch shotgun feed. This is technically known as the short side of the mill. The logs are hauled up into the mill over an endless chain and the refuse is carried directly west of the mill to a burner thirty-two feet in diameter, shown in the birdseye view. This is a water jacket burner, the jacket running 70 feet high. The burner itself is 100 feet high.

Returning to the saw floor of mill No. 1 we find an 8-saw double edger, a 28-foot trimmer and an 8-saw slasher.

On the southwest corner of saw mill No. 1 is a lath mill in an annex 24x60 feet in area containing appropriate lath machinery.

The lumber from the saw mill is dumped from the sorting chains, which run to the east, and is graded as to common lumber and loaded on 2-wheeled carts. An arrangement is now being put in place in the shape of a runway to the southeast, over which the common lumber will be trundled to the yards or to the dry kilns as desired, it now being the plan of the company to dry all its common lumber in the great amount of modernly built kiln space now being put into use.

The timbers will be handled from this mill by a steam crane run by a small engine located near the tail of the mill, convenient to the timber dock, upon which all the timbers are dumped, being run as they are over live rollers to the dock directly from the saws.

Adjacent to this saw mill No. 1 on the east side of the mill are two boiler houses, one the boiler house proper for the mill, and another by the side of it has recently been erected. In the first named boiler house are four 66-inch by 16-foot boilers, which furnish the power for saw mill No. 1. Also in this boiler house — which is also engine house for saw mill No. 1—is a 4-inch suction and 3-inch discharge pump. The saw mill engine proper is in boiler house No. 1 and is a 24x48 Corliss. Another engine connected with saw mill No. 1 is an 8x8 affair in the filing room, for running the complete filing room machinery.

The day and night capacity of saw mill No. 1 is 240,000 feet, or 65,000,000 feet annually, lumber scale; 65,000 daily is the capacity of the lath mill.

Saw Mill No. 2.
Saw mill No. 2, otherwise known as the hardwood mill, referred to in the introduction as a modern band mill and as the latest mill built by the Southern Pine Lumber Company, was begun in December, 1906, and began running in April, 1907.

Its foundation is of concrete capped with cast iron plates on top of the piers, the posts downstairs are 14x14 in size and the hight of the lower story is 16 feet in the clear, making a splendid, well lighted and readily accessible repository for all of the under saw floor machinery not often seen in saw mill manufacture. The engine foundations are of brick and concrete, imbedded three feet in the ground. The mill literally runs without a tremor and is as steady as a mountain of settled habits. The upper story is in the frame 12x12 and is 12 feet in the clear. The nigger is installed downstairs with the shaftings, boxings and pulleys.

On the saw floor is a band saw mill with a 3-block carriage, steam trip and a 12-inch shotgun feed. The logs are handled to this carriage by a kicker and trip.

In an annex is a full complement of lath machinery, where until recently five-eighths lath were made. In that department is also a wood saw, so that the offal from the mill can be cut either into lath or into wood.

The lumber from this mill is handled by carrying chains, the common lumber either going to the yard or being transferred by an incline arrangement directly to the dry kilns several hundred feet to the east.

This machinery described above is contained in a building 40x155 feet in area. The line shaft downstairs is 4-7/8 inches at one end, tapering to 2-15/16 inches, and is 158 feet in length.

The lath mill annex is 28x60 feet in area and has a line shaft 3-7/16 inches in diameter, 50 feet long. The daily capacity of saw mill No. 2 in day run is in yellow pine 60,000 feet and in hardwoods 40,000 feet. The day and night capacity in yellow pine is 120,000 feet. Hardwoods have not been cut at night.

The power house of this plant is located to the east of the mill and a high brick wall intervenes between the boiler house and the mill proper for fire protection. In this power house are three 66-inch by 16-foot boilers, steamboat setting, and a 4-inch suction and 3-inch discharge pump and an engine of the standard Corliss variety, 20x42 inches. The power house is of galvanized iron.

Saw mill No. 2 has a fine timber dock to which the timbers manufactured are handled by live rolls, and from the dock to the ears by a steam crane. This crane is a duplicate of the one which is installed and in use at saw mill No. 1 for handling timber.

HANDLING THE LUMBER.
The handling of the lumber at the plant of the Southern Pine Lumber Company at Diboll, Tex., is an interesting proposition. Just now all the lumber is being handled by mule and hand dollies. However, several contrivances are being put in place to accomplish in a transfer way some of the things that could not be done so cheaply by hand.

A time will come soon — certainly within the next ninety days—when the lumber from both mills will be arranged for the kilns and delivered to the kiln car platforms by transfer cars over tracks run at right angles to the yard alleys, built with such grades that cars will almost be handled by gravity and returned in the same way. A draw bridge in this track is being erected, to be elevated and lowered by steam, which will permit the buggies of No. 3 stock to pass to the yards.

Yard room, which can easily be extended, now exists at Diboll in which 25,000,000 feet of lumber could be piled and in which is now piled at least 15,000,000 feet of yellow pine of assorted sizes. There is in hardwood 2,000,000 feet divided as follows: 350,000 feet inch gum, 100,000 feet 1-1/2-inch gum, 50,000 feet 2-inch gum, 1,200,000 feet inch plain sawed white oak, 100,000 feet 1-1/2-inch plain white oak, 100,000 feet 2-inch oak, 100,000 feet inch quarter sawed oak.

All of the lumber put into the yards is piled in low piles. The hardwood piles are six feet wide. Fifty dollies are used in handling the heavy movement of lumber to the yards from both mills.

About the Great Sheds.
The sheds are undoubtedly the most commodious in Texas or in the south or southwest. There is a great shed for rough common lumber, which looks in the birdseye view like three sheds, as it has three roofs. It is, however, as to its floor, one great shed, 150 feet wide and 500 feet long. This shed begins at a point 200 feet south of the kilns and runs south 500 feet, as indicated in the birdseye view. This shed will hold, with the lumber piled so all is accessible, just about 5,000,000 feet, figuring that the demand for lengths, widths and sizes follows along ordinary lines.

Just east of the shed another for clear rough lumber, 52 by 350 feet in area, will hold at least 1,500,000 feet of lumber.

The Men in Service.
In service are 100 men who handle the lumber to and from the planing mill. Fifty-six of these men handle the lumber through the planing mill and forty-four men handle it from the planing mill to the cars, or re-shed it.

The lumber will be transferred as desired from the sheds to the planing mill, or direct to cars. Southeast of the rough sheds is a shed for manufactured lumber, SO by 450 feet in area, where are stored between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 feet of lumber. South of that shed is a molding shed, 60 by 96 feet, where moldings, casing, base, drop and bevel siding are stored, and which will hold about 1,000,000 lineal feet of molding and 100,000 feet of the other stuff mentioned.

Referring to the common lumber again, the No. 1 common will go from the kilns to the machine and be dressed to standard of Yellow Pine Manufacturers' Association grades and be again regraded.

Timber and Good Lumber.
The timbers from both mills are handled to a dock at the south of each mill by live rolls and are picked up by steam cranes, which enables three men to load a car of timbers each hour.

The good lumber is stacked at each mill and transferred to the dry kilns, dried and. loaded directly on the cars, if wanted in the rough, put through the planing mill if wanted dressed, or stored in the appropriate rough shed. The 6, 8, 10 and 12-inch good lumber is stacked in the rough shed usually and brought from that shed to the machines to be worked into finish, drop siding, bevel siding, moldings etc. Any stock falling from the upper grades is worked into drop siding and ceiling and loaded into cars or placed in the dressed lumber shed, as desired.

Shipping Department.
Actually in lumber shipping service at the yellow pine end of the business are forty-four men, trained, picked negro help, who use in doing the work fifty hand dollies or trucks. The loading dock for yellow pine is 24. feet wide and 1,000 long. The lumber is all weighed on track scales, so the management knows exactly how much freight is owing on every car of lumber and is in. fine position to contest overcharges.

In the hardwood shipping department fourteen men are used, eight handling the lumber from the stacks and six loading it into the cars. The timbers are loaded right at the saw mill, as previously stated, with the use of a special sidetrack. The hardwood is all loaded from the shipping dock on the west side of the hardwood mill, where there is dock room and track room for ten cars. The switching facilities are as good as those from the yellow pine lumber docks.

THE WONDERFUL DRYING CAPACITY.
No lumber producing concern in the United States is better fitted for drying its product, and so large a percent of its product in proportion to its output, than the Southern Pine Lumber Company. In no other department of this business have the steps of evolution left deeper impress than in that of the preparation of the lumber for market in the matter of its drying.

On page 90 of this article 90 percent of the page space shows views of the superior dry kilns of various patterns, twelve rooms which will hold 544,400 feet of lumber of all sorts on an average. Beginning about the time this article will go to press, all of the common as well as the clear lumber at Diboll will be subjected to rigid kiln drying.

The retail trade, of the country may always depend upon it that anything which the Southern Pine Lumber Company ships to them will be dry, made from the famous "Neches Valley Pine" and therefore uniform in quality. These standards will be rigidly maintained.

Four years ago the company built south of the yellow pine mill a nest of six kilns Which have proven most effective and altogether satisfactory in every particular. Each one of the rooms of these first kilns is 20 by 125 feet in area, of brick, with side walls 17 inches thick and the inside walls 13 inches, the whole capped with a fire wall 18 inches high. There are three miles of pipe in each room.

These kilns, of course, are run night and day and all the No. 1 and No. 2 common will be dried therein.

These first named rooms will hold altogether 324,000 feet of lumber at a time and will dry common lumber In forty-eight hours and turn out clear lumber fully dried in from sixty to seventy-two hours.

Six other kilns to the west of the first named and of a new pattern have just been finished, the stalls being six in number. Each stall is ten feet between the door posts and seventy feet in the clear in length, and each will hold four trucks of lumber averaging 5,000 feet to the truck, or a constant capacity of 20,000 feet to the stall and 120,000 feet to the six kilns. These kilns are guaranteed to dry perfectly any kind of lumber in twenty-four hours' time.

The outside walls of the last named kilns are 18 inches thick, of solid brick, and the inside walls 13 inches thick, coated with cement. The stalls are sheeted with 4-inch yellow pine flooring, with an empty air compartment of 8 inches between the sheeting and the brick wall. At the top of the wall separating each stall is a moisture escape the full length of the wall, which forms the cooling apparatus of the kiln.

The kilns in each room are piped with over 17,500 feet of inch piping, these pipes being filled with steam from a main feed pipe in each stall. There is a decline of 18 inches in the floor of these kilns between the front and rear, so that the downhill roll will facilitate the motion on steel rails of the heavy lumber trucks. This declining track runs from the rear of the kilns to the lumber sheds. These last named kilns will handle the clear lumber in yellow pine from both of the mills and were put into commission January 15, 1908.

The steam for both sets of kilns is furnished from the dry kiln boiler house 200 feet northeast of the kilns. The boilers in this house are four, 72 inches in diameter by 18 feet long, steamboat setting.

DRESSING THE LUMBER.
The planing mill at Diboll is a model and is one of the best arrangements of any installed in the south. This mill contains one 8x30 sizer, one 8x18 sizer, four 15-inch No. 2 combination matchers, six 9-inch matchers, one 10-inch outside molder, one 15-inch inside molder, six swing cutoff saws and two resaws. The mill also contains. two edgers, one lath machine and two blowers, one double 50-inch and one double 70-inch.

The line shaft in this planing mill, 302 feet long, runs from 5-7/16 to 2-15/16 inches in diameter, and is equipped with self oiling boxes.

In the south end of the planing mill in a filing room 14x50 feet in area is kept a full stock of molding bits, casing and base knives, drop siding knives etc., for almost all patterns in the molding book.

The planing mill building in 252 by 80 feet in area. This mill employs forty-three persons and it is considered to have a capacity of 275,000 feet average run of lumber a day.

The Power Plant.
The boiler house of this planing mill is north of the north end of the building and is 50 by 60 feet in area. It contains all boilers and engines and a 10 by 18 brick shaving vault, for use of fuel for planing mill only. There is a self feed system for feeding the fire for the boilers with this fuel. This house is sided with iron, but the shaving house is of brick and is under the roof of the boiler house proper.

The power is generated for the planing mill by three boilers each 60 inches in diameter and 16 feet long. The planing mill engine is a Corliss, 24 by 48, 1900 model, and a particularly fine engine.

The Blowpipe System.
There are two blowers to do the work, a double 50-inch and a double 70-inch. The former takes the shavings from eight machines and discharges them into a separator on top of the planing mill, which drops the shavings into the double 70-inch blower. The double 70 picks up the shavings from ten other machines and discharges from the double 50-inch, and what it picks up, through a pipe 36 inches in diameter, to the engine room of the planing mill. At this point a 17-inch pipe leads out to the separator to supply fuel for the furnace of the planing mill.

From that point to the fuel, house, 750 feet distant, is a pipe, 32 inches in diameter, which carries all the shavings through to the fuel house. At the starting point of this pipe is a positive valve which, when thrown to the right direction, puts all the shavings into another 32-inch pipe, which runs 900 feet to a separator that drops the shavings into the great refuse burner west of the yellow pine saw mill. When the fuel house is filled to its capacity the switch is thrown and all the overplus shavings go to the burner.

ELECTRIC LIGHTS AND TELEPHONES.
Two dynamos now in use produce the electric lights for the plant and for the town of Diboll These machines are located in the new dry kiln boiler house. Until two years ago in use here was a small machine of 20 kilowatts, but two years ago a dynamo of 35 kilowatts was placed in the old dry kiln boilerhouse. To this electric light capacity has just been added a new 50-kilowatt machine, and thus it is that the electric power for use of the plant and the town has been increased 75 percent within the last two years.

Two Dynamos.
The switchboard is a Whitney. There are installed about 10,000 feet of main line wiring in the shape of leads throughout the plant and town, and at least 10,000 of similar wiring are in the different buildings.

Both plants, planing mill, both yards and twenty-seven houses are lighted. In use are fifteen 25-eandle power lamps, 630 16-candle power lamps and twenty-eight are lights.

The engine which runs the plant is 13x12 in size, 275 revolutions, 125 horsepower, and obtains its steam power for the boilers in the same house. The current is 220 volts direct.

The Telephone System.
Over thirty miles of telephone line are in commission, and installed are eight receivers, one in the mill office, one in the railroad office, one in the Diboll store, one at the steam shovel now in operation, one for use at the bridge gang camp, one at each of the woods camps, and one at Vair, The line is really a party line connected with the town of Lufkin, and through Lufkin with the Southwestern Telephone & Telegraph Company lines throughout the southwest. Thus no portion of the operations of the Southern Pine Lumber Company is in any sense isolated, for one can talk from any one of the stations mentioned to Texarkana, Houston or anywhere else in the southwest where telephone communication is possible.

FIRE PROTECTION.
The plant of the Southern Pine Lumber Company and the town of Diboll are abundantly protected from conflagration by a system vastly more commensurate with conditions than the length of this inventory of its features will show.

There are two pumps of precisely the same size and character, one located near mill No, 1 and the other at the northwest corner of mill No. 2. These pumps in dimension are 16x10x16.

Of piping for the conveyance of water to all parts of the plant there is laid and in commission 400 feet of 10-inch pipe, 700 feet of 7-inch, 1,100 feet of 6-inch, 1,300 feet of 4-inch, 800 feet of 3-inch and 1,100 feet of 2-inch pipe. There are all told forty-six 2-inch and thirty-eight 2-1/2-inch hydrants, 125 buckets and 125 barrels, the barrels filled with water for immediate use. The hose in use consists of 1,750 feet of 2-1/2-inch and 1,800 feet of 2-inch. A magnificent steel water tank holding 40,000 gallons, standing 131 feet over all, has just been erected, which can be seen dominating the great birdseye view referred to elsewhere.

The pumps are connected with the tank, as also are all the hydrants, and, under steam at all times, can be started at a moment's notice. Water is secured from ponds No. 2 and 3, the pump at the yellow pine mill working from No. 2 and the pump at the hardwood mill drawing from No. 3.

THE MERCANTILE DEPARTMENT.
Nothing better illustrates the growth of a yellow pine lumber company than the growth of its mercantile department, run for the accommodation and benefit of its employees. A better organization of general stores it has not been this writer's privilege to examine than the main and two subsidiary stores of the Southern Pine Lumber Company.

The first store of the company consisted of a building 20x30 feet in size, with an 8x30 foot annex for groceries, making, all told, 840 feet of floor space. That store was erected and began business in 1894. It was sufficient until 1898, when another building was erected, 36x66 feet in area, and as the old store was used for a warehouse the floor space was increased to 3,226 square feet. In 1901 that store was destroyed by fire and another one was built of the same size. In 1902 another room, 36x36 feet, was added, making the floor space 5,612 feet in area. In 1907 a second story, 66x72 feet, was put over both the buildings as they stood, and the floor space was increased to 10,384 square feet of area, adding to which the square feet of area of the drug store, which is 30x50 feet in size, and the area of the two stores in the woods, the present total area of floor space is 13,804 feet.

The general store at Diboll is contained in the ground floor rooms, one room of 36x66 being the store proper and the other room, of the same size, being the storage room. The second floor, 66x72 feet, is used for furniture and mens furnishing goods.

In 1896 a branch store was erected in Camp No. 1, in a building 20x30 feet, which was rebuilt in 1900, covering 30x50 feet, and is now contained in two cars, 12x80 feet. In 1906 a store was established at Camp No. 2, also in two car houses.

Including the manager, W. P. Rutland, twelve persons are employed to take care of the general store and the drug store. In 1902 these stores did a business of $108,000; in 1903, $128,000; in 1904, $139,000; in 1905, $150,000; in 1906, $190,000, and estimating the last six weeks on the basis of the previous ten and a half months, the year 1907 will show a total business of $290,000.

The Diboll store alone sold $40,000 worth of goods in October. This store carries $20,000 stock; the drug store carries $2,500 of stock; the store at Camp No. 1, $2,500; the store at Camp No. 2, $3,000.

The fair and effective manner in which these stores are managed is exemplified by the fact that they draw country trade not only from Angelina county but from Trinity and Polk counties as well, and it is no uncommon thing for farmers to drive in thirty miles to do business at the great mercantile emporium at Diboll.

THE SELLING END.
All but about one-half of 1 percent of the product of the mills at Diboll is sold through the selling office at Texarkana. There six commodious rooms are occupied by the various persons who are needed in an office way to do the work.

The business of the Southern Pine Lumber Company is distributed in the following grand divisions of the country: Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin. The relative amount of business done in each of these states is indicated by the order in which the above list runs.

Four men are constantly employed on the road to represent the company in the sale of lumber. These with their headquarters are: H. W. Walker, Oklahoma City, Okla.; A. M. Hill, St, Louis, Mo.; W. H. Lewis, Lincoln, Neb.; J. S. Prestridge, Indianapolis.

The entire selling end of the business is in the hands of L. D. Gilbert, secretary and treasurer of the Southern Pine Lumber Company. Through information compiled by Mr. Gilbert a tabular statement of the amount of business done by this institution in carload lots from 1894 to 1907, inclusive, is presented:


YEAR ............... Cars
1894 ............... 196
1895 ............... 695
1896 ............... 603
1897 ............... 907
1898 ............... 922
1899 ............... 1,309
1900 ............... 975
1901 ............... 1,327
1902 ............... 1,404
1903 ............... 1,598
1904 ............... 2,332
1905 ............... 2,171
1906 ............... 3,060
1907 ............... 3,710

The product of the new mill cannot rightly be said to be yet put upon the market, and so it is no exaggerated prophecy to expect that during the future life of the Southern Pine Lumber Company its sales should never fall below 125,000,000 feet annually. Had the company been able to secure the necessary cars in which to ship lumber the sales last year would not have fallen short of 5,000 cars.

The Southern Pine Lumber Company's office at Texarkana also handles a large amount of the product of the Garrison-Norton Lumber Company, at Pine-land, Tex., but outside of that one mill it does not seek the product of any other mill, believing, and correctly, that by handling "Neches Valley Pine" manufactured under its own direction, thereby securing uniformity not only of manufacture but of quality, it does a greater amount of business and is more successful in pleasing and thereby holding its customers—the highest two ambitions attainable in the sale of lumber.

FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD.
In times of exclusive day run of the mills at Diboll, which is the temporary condition of affairs just now, in January, 1908, the payroll contains 710 names. When demand is heavy, as in the last five years, 880 men are employed in all the ramifications of the Southern Pine Lumber Company's business. These employees are now divided about as follows: In the logging, 175; in timber affairs, 2; on the railroad, 115; log storage, 6; hardwood mill, 15; yellow pine mill, 28; planing mill, 43; handling lumber to planing mill, 56; handling lumber from planing mill, 44; dry kilns, 11; yarding yellow pine lumber, 57; yarding hardwood lumber, 28; construction, 25; machine shops, 15; general stores, 12; miscellaneous—electricians, watchmen etc.—6; Texarkana selling department, 11.

This employment of common and skilled labor brings together, with Diboll for its center, a population directly interested in these affairs of not less than 2,500 persons at any time. Often as many as 3,200 persons are directly connected with and dependent upon these operations.

Physical and Intellectual Comfort.
The public good—the physical and intellectual comfort, of these people—has become a problem to be worked out by the company management, which is being done on broad and. philanthropic lines that must demand explanation and exploitation in any well balanced account of the operations of the Southern Pine Lumber Company.

South of the town of Diboll or, rather, in the residence section, is a neat little yellow pine church, two stories in hight, on the lower floor of which services are held by the Baptists, the Methodists and one other denomination, and in which audience room occur at present most of the public gatherings not of a secret society nature that are held in Diboll. On the upper floor of this building is a secret society chamber in which the Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World hold regular convocations.

In the residence of Frank Farrington each Sunday morning at 10 o'clock Christian Science services are held.

There has been finished, at Diboll a finely fitted up Knights of Pythias "Castle Hall," the upper floor of which will be used for meetings of local lodge No. 304, the lower floor of which will contain a stage and be utilized for lectures, electric theaters etc. This building was dedicated November 15, 1907.

A Women's Club.
In Diboll is an organization known as the Women's Literary Club, organized more than a year ago, which meets fortnightly at the residences of the various members and has been instituted for the purpose of raising the standard of the literature read by Diboll citizens. It has done much for society entertainment in the town. The first annual dinner of the Women's Literary Club was held recently at the residence of Charles Fredreck, and a banquet was provided, which, in its substantial character and in the frills and furbelows that go with banquets, would have done credit to any city in Texas.

An Athletic Society.
The younger men in the employ of the company at Diboll who have semiexecutive positions such as office work and the various positions that are given out to young men of quality who desire to learn the lumber business have a well organized athletic society which devotes much of its holidays and spare time to baseball and tennis. Pictures of the ball club and of the tennis court are printed in this article, showing the character of the recreations, amusements and sports indulged in by the very superior class of persons who live in the saw mill town.

The general health of the employees of the Southern Pine Lumber Company is guarded in a medical way by the usual methods of the saw mill people of the south and southwest. Two physicians are employed, Dr. W. S. Pedigo and Dr. C. S. Lane, who cater to the requirements of employees on payment of the usual fee for that purpose.

A Dairy and Poultry Farm.
Just east of Diboll, on a line of spur track to be erected for that purpose, will soon be established a high class commercial poultry farm and dairy, primarily to cater to the wants of the people of Diboll.

The farm will occupy 200 acres and upon it will be erected all the necessary barns and sheds. The dairy will be begun by the purchase and installation of fifty Jerseys cows, and a thousand chickens will be secured from the Lakeside Dairy Farm, owned and operated by T. L. L. Temple, near Texarkana. Ark. The citizens of Diboll will be served first from these resources.

During the present year an ice plant and cold storage plant will be erected at Diboll, During the summer months ice is shipped to Diboll in carload lots from Lufkin, one carload every other day.

A Magnificent Library Building.
The crowning glory of Diboll will soon be a magnificent library building, which is indicated herewith in a birdseye view of Diboll and its vicinity made from a wash drawing from the plans of Civil Engineer, J. E. Mitchell.

The idea of a library was suggested by T. L. L. Temple, president of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, so that the officers and employees and their families will have a comfortable place in which to spend their evenings socially and educationally. The plans for the building provide for a 2-story frame, 48x80 feet in size, the first floor of which will be the main gathering hall or audience room, 26x48 feet in size, and a billiard and pool room, 16x32, a cloak room and a finely furnished and equipped suite of bath rooms.

The main hall, the billiard room and the stairway will be finished entirely in red gum manufactured by the hardwood mill, of the Southern Pine Lumber Company. The lumber will be finished and dressed in the big planing mill.

The second story will contain one main hall 11x14 feet, one hall 8x48 feet, two rooms 16x18 feet each, four rooms 16x16 feet and a bath room 10x16. These rooms will be occupied by the unmarried officers of the Southern Pine Lumber Company at Diboll. They will be suitably furnished to make splendid living rooms for the young men.

The exterior of the building will be as attractive as the products of the great mill plant can make it, On the ground floor wide verandas will extend along the front and two sides of the building. On the second floor will be verandas on two sides of the building and a portico 12x16 feet in front.

Private and Public Schools.
The first public school of Diboll was organized with the erection of the first saw mill and was conducted in a building west of the lumber yard, which has since been torn down. In 1899 the present building south of the town was erected, and in 1906 an addition of one room was built to accommodate the first and second grades. Since 1900 the school attendance (then about seventy-five) has increased to 150, which reflects the total school enumeration of 203 white children of school age in the district.

The present building is 30x60 feet, one story high, and contains three rooms. Three teachers are employed—Prof. W. A. O'Quinn, M. S., principal, who is a graduate of Sam Houston Normal School, Huntsville, Tex.; W. A. Wofford, of Athens, Tex., first assistant; Mrs. Robert Kirby, second assistant, in charge of first and second grades. Until 1905 two teachers were employed. The schools are open for seven months each year, beginning September 30.

Prof. W. A. O'Quinn since coming to the school last year has carried out the graded system, which was only in partial operation heretofore. This has proven very satisfactory and has resulted in rapid advancement of his pupils.

The present building is entirely inadequate for the needs of the school and will be replaced this year by new and much larger buildings; for these a different location will be selected later. The necessity for improvement has already compelled the purchase of new modern desks and seats, which are now being installed. These improvements were bought by private subscription and through funds raised by entertainments given by the Ladies' Improvement Society of Diboll. The school district consists of sixteen square miles and contains only the white and colored schools of Diboll.

A high class select or private school convenes each school day in the audience room of the union church previously mentioned. This school has as principal and only teacher and promoter, Mrs. A. H. Bunch, the talented wife of the hardwood shipping clerk at Diboll.

The colored school located southwest of the plant, in the negro quarters, has an attendance of about forty pupils under the tutorship of J. W, Hogg.

AND IN THE LAST PLACE.
And now, Mr. Reader, having read all the story of the evolution of the Southern Pine Lumber Company up to and including the last paragraph of the division above, it will not be by any means a bad idea to "sum up" as the lawyers do; in other words, to find out in a few brief paragraphs or to discuss with yourself just what you have learned and how you have been entertained by this illustrated article. If you are a lumberman you have been well entertained by the magnificent pictures produced by the skill of the photographer and the skill of the engraver and the skill of the printer and pressman, but more particularly on account of the subjects which were photographed in order to obtain the magnificent accompanying illustrations.

In an illustrative way you have seen altogether the most dignified and startling title page that has been given to a story of this character; you have learned of the extensive building operations that were necessary to produce general traffic lines to be used largely for carrying logs to be eaten up by the glimmering saws at Diboll; have seen a map of the five counties of Angelina, Houston, Anderson, Nacogdoches and Trinity which indicates at a glance the widespread character of these operations; have seen on one page pictures of the eight magnificent locomotives that are used by the Texas Southeastern railroad largely in hauling logs to the mills at Diboll and hauling lumber away from those mills; have seen pictures of groups of great draft horses and mules in the woods, and have seen pictures of the steam skidders at work. Particularly and especially you have seen the largest free hand birdseye view of a single saw mill operation ever printed in a lumber trade newspaper in the history of the printing of lumber trade newspapers and in the history of the building of saw mills in the United States. Following this birdseye view referred to you have seen the pictures of long bodied shortleaf "Neches Valley pine" standing in the woods, the same kind of pine stretched as far as the eye can reach along log ramps in the woods, and carloads of these in the various parts of the woods operations; two panoramic views on one page showing a picture, and in each case from a different viewpoint, of the two mills of the Southern Pine Lumber Company at Diboll; have seen, typical train loads remarkable hardwood timber standing particularly you have seen pictures yellow pine saw mill and a great hardwood saw mill practically standing side by side in the same proposition; you have seen pictures of the interiors of those saw mills—and especially you have seen pictures of actual log decks, something not before shown in an article of this sort. You have found a particular picture— "A Sunset View Over the Diboll" which for artistic beauty high piles, well kept alleys, trains of cars loader with "Neches Valley soft pine" lumber going into market, fire extinguishing equipment which protects all these buildings, and such pictures of sheds and the like as have not been before shown to the readers of this publication—but nowhere in this entire article on the interior of the paper have you run across an illustrative fact which is greater than the cold type facts contained in the much condensed and comparatively meager text which accompanies these illustrations.

Having read the text of this article, of course, you. already know that it was created for more purposes than simply as a frame for the illustrations, and now at the very end of the story when you sum up the things of importance in this text you have found the text so important that it is well, nigh impossible to divest it of what might be called verbiage and reduce it to a few bare facts. To you stands out from the story the main idea that you have made a discovery---that the Southern Pine Lumber Company is a much more vast and a much more important proposition than you ever suspected it to be.

Even some of the most intimate friends of T. L. L. Temple have been astonished at the magnitude of the operations of the Southern Pine Lumber Company as depicted by the glimpses they have had of the pictures and some of the information from the text of this article as preparations for the article were going on in this office.

To the retail lumber dealers of the entire country the Southern Pine Lumber Company has been an institution which was prompt in its deliveries, perfect in its manufacture and well rated by all the commercial agencies. But you have now learned from this text, Mr. Reader, that the Southern Pine Lumber Company is a lumber producing concern of the very first magnitude; that its operations support over thirty-six hundred people; that over eight hundred persons are employed by it in ordinary normal times; that with the present ownership of timberland, such land owned T. L. L. Temple personally and such land as is to be acquired, the Southern Pine Lumber Company will before its final closing down as a lumber manufacturing institution handle over two billions of feet of timber to the saw's edge.