90 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Loading Eastern Lumber at Tidewater and Lumber Schooners Taking on Cargo at 



Bangor, Me. 



by the opening of the Canal, yet the 

 latter also should have an increased 

 field in which to market their products, 

 or at least their present field should be 

 freed from a certain amount of com- 

 petition which it now meets from the 

 tide-water plants. Most of the Coast 

 mills have rail as well as water con- 

 nections and cater to the cargo or rail 

 trade depending on which market is the 

 better for the time being. With an 

 enlarged field for their cargo trade the 

 Coast mills will to a large extent abandon 

 their rail trade and leave it unmolested 

 to the interior mills. It is also probable 

 that a greater amount of cargo trade will 

 develop for certain species, such as 

 western white pine, which is manu- 

 factured exclusively by the rail mills. 

 This wood is now in demand in the 

 East as a substitute for eastern white 

 pine and even today the cargo trade in 

 this wood is of considerable importance. 

 It is probable that the rail shipments 

 which now reach the eastern seaboard 

 will later come largely by water and in 

 increasing quantities. 



The new Canal route should open up a 



new export field for western lumber, 

 especially in eastern South America and 

 in Europe — regions which largely have 

 been dominated by yellow pine. How- 

 ever, western lumbermen will find pro- 

 gress slow in both of these sections, 

 because of the old established business 

 connections of the manufactiirers of 

 eastern woods. Yellow pine has been an 

 important factor in many European 

 markets for years and has held its own 

 in competition with lumber from Russia, 

 Sweden and Norway, and since the 

 Douglas fir lumber must pay for a haul 

 several thousand miles longer than 

 yellow pine the cost of placing it on the 

 market will be greater. The European 

 markets, especially in the United King- 

 dom, are exceedingly conservative. 

 Some fir is now used there and the 

 demand for large ship timbers will 

 probably rapidly increase, but a strong 

 campaign would be necessary before 

 the consiimer of construction and finish- 

 ing lumber could be persuaded to buy 

 readily a wood with which they are not 

 thoroughly familiar. 



The South American trade of greatest 



