THE AMERICAN LUMBER MARKET 211 



doubling of selling prices. Had they year 70 per cent, of the Douglas fir 



not been told that in twenty or twenty- produced was shipped beyond an esti- 



five years the streams would run dry mated $3 freight zone. Moreover, the 



amid the waste of denuded hills? eastern market, formerly reached with 



Conscious only of taxes and interest on northern lumber and latterly counted 



investments, and unmindful of the upon as a market for Douglas fir, is 



hundreds of billions of feet of timber fast growing to be a country of cities 



remaining in the north and south, they in which brick, stone or concrete 



set in motion machinery to reduce the displaces wood. Manufacturers are just 



forests of the west. Impatient for awakening to the need for merchandis- 



realization, owners incapable of carrying ing. 



an investment which cannot be con- It may be said that stumpage bought 



verted at pleasure lost sight of the fact by the third owners since 1906 cannot 



that stimipage return is only the be sold today at an advance sufficient 



difference between the cost of produc- to pay interest, taxes and fire patrol, 



tion and distribution, and the selling In 1907 came a reaction in the lumber 



value of lumber. But few foresaw that market and the price realized by the 



because of indifference on the part of manufacturer has since then continued 



lumbermen to the trend of economic so low that many mills have, on an 



conditions and because of the discovery average, sold lumber below the cost of 



and exploitation of other materials of production, leaving cost of raw material 



merit, the demand for lumber would out of the calculation. This, however, 



fail. Lumbermen minded their mills may not affect the ultimate value of 



but neglected their markets. stumpage held until it is needed. 



History should repeat itself as regards The true value of stumpage has 



stumpage values in the west but history never actually increased by speculation, 



is chiefly a record of human action. Advances have followed, not preceded. 



Owing to distance from present centers the establishment of manufacturing 



of consumption, transportation will industries and they have been due 



take up some of the return that in the almost entirely to demand. The situa- 



north and south is a part of the profits, tion is the same in the case of every 



In no forest region has stumpage primary commodity. In the end the 



become valuable until the supply was consumer must pay the bill ; but to meet 



diminished ; and today white pine stump- legitimate competition and produce a 



age in the north is worth $15 per M fair return to capital and labor lumber 



despite competition from the north, manufacturers must so change their 



south and west. Every day brings methods that economies will result 



that time nearer on the Pacific Slope, from closer utilization of the raw product 



Western forest history is young. and cheaper distribution to the con- 



The average timber buyer, however, sumer. Substitute materials will always 

 perhaps failed to consider some of the intervene against excessive prices for 

 important factors contributing to the Ivimber. In the western country the 

 enhancement of stumpage values. The cost of stumpage is still an unimportant 

 lumber business of the north, for in- factor in the cost of lumber to its users, 

 stance, was largely fostered by the Waste and costs added after the finished 

 wonderful agricultural and manufac- product leaves the producer are more 

 tilling development of the Mississippi important. Today practically all of the 

 Valley, with its thirty million people timber in the United States and Canada 

 reached at low freight cost. Wages is under the ax and every community 

 were low. Competition of substitutes is competing in an effort to force greater 

 and other woods had not disturbed the consimiption ; not by improved business- 

 market. Limiber was bought. But the developing methods, but by profitless 

 territory within a $3 freight haul of destructive price-cutting which injures 

 the western forests is not so easily both the community and the capital 

 developed. The product must be hauled invested in manufacturing. Stumpage 

 long distances to reach an extensive owners must wait until this strife 

 market and the cost is heavy. Last shall end. 



