16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



also that without the fullest co-operation on the part of the work- 

 man himself the fullest purpose of the accident prevention is de- 

 feated. The insert is the first of a proposed series of similar 

 inserts, each one of which will deal with a particular danger 

 and will describe and illustrate specific means by which such 

 points of danger can be covered in a practical manner. 



What has been needed in the matter of accident prevention has 

 been less agitation and more uniformity of methods. This en- 

 deavor on the part of the National Association of Manufacturers 

 is surely one which will eventually result in considerably simplify- 

 ing preventive devices and will ultimately effect uniformity in 

 methods and in appliances for the purpose of guarding various 

 dangerous machine parts. The inserts will be contained in each 

 issue of "American .Industries" published once a month and will 

 ultimately effect a vast amount of good if every employer of labor 

 operating an industrial plant will secure the supplement and fol- 

 low the suggestions contained. 



Lumber Cost — Present and Future 



SOMEHOW A NOTION PREVAILS pretty widely that the 

 price of lumber in this country is in someway controlled by 

 a combine, a trust, a monopoly, or something of the sort; that 

 if the people could get round some obstacle — the exact nature of 

 which nobody appears to be able to define or describe — lumber 

 could be bought for less money. Persons well informed in the 

 timber trade and lumber business know better, but too many peo- 

 ple have never inquired into the matter, and accept groundless 

 suspicions as facts. 



There is no general combination to enhance the price of lumber 

 to the consumers. If there were, the evidence of it would exist 

 in the price. Lumber at the present time in this country is one 

 of the cheapest commodities consumed by the people. It is cheap 

 in comparison with prevailing prices of other necessities. Almost 

 everything else costs more in comparison with former prices. 

 Other commodities have gone up much faster than lumber has. 

 There is as much genuine competition among the manufacturers 

 of lumber as among the growers of potatoes, corn, and cattle, or 

 the manufacturers of clothing, shoes, hats, and furniture. 



The latest census statistics show there are 31,934 active saw- 

 mills in the United States, and this does not include mills which 

 cut less than 50,000 feet a year. There are probably over 15,000 

 of these little mills. The total for the whole country doubtless 

 exceeds 45,000 sawmills, large and small. They are located every- 

 where, except in the absolutely treeless region. Every mill that is 

 cutting lumber is trying to sell it, and is bound to sell it in order 

 to keep going. The lumber is not thrown into a great pool, where 

 somebody fixes the price and sells at that price; but competition 

 governs, and the competition is as genuine and as general as that 

 found anywhere else. The result is that Americans buy their 

 lumber as cheaply as any people, and much more cheaply than 

 most people are able to buy. 



Not only is lumber cheaper here than in most other civilized 

 countries, but it is cheaper now than it will ever be again. The 

 reason for the present cheapness is not far to seek. The timber 

 which the mills are now harvesting was planted and matured by 

 nature during the past hundreds of years, without the help of 

 man, and at no cost to man. Nature, with unprecedented gen- 

 erosity, gave this timber to the present generation as a free gift, 

 and the present generation is now engaged in reaping the harvest 

 which it did not sow. 



This timber planted by nature will not last forever. Most of 

 it has been cut and the remaining areas are going year by year 

 to the mills. What will happen when it is gone? Prices will ad- 

 vance as supply decreases. Up to the present time there has been no 

 real timber scarcity, though some kinds are becoming deplete<I. 

 When one kind has been depleted or largely reduced, a substi- 

 tute species has been found. That has kept prices down ; but the 

 process of finding substitutes cannot continue indefinitely. No 

 additional sources of lumber remain to be discovered in this 



country. All is in sight, and mills are at work on practically all 

 of it. 



When timber planted by nature has become reduced to a low 

 point, and supplies become dependent upon the products of pri- 

 vate forestry, there will be an advance in lumber cost which will 

 make present day prices look very small. That time is not yet 

 here, but it is coming. It is not necessary to cross the bridge- 

 before it is reached, but it is well enough to look ahead when a 

 disposition to complain of present day lumber cost is felt. Whenj 

 the private woodlot becomes the chief source of lumber, tim- 

 ber cannot be bought for two, three, or five dollars a thousand, 

 but stumpage alone will then cost about as much as lumber re- 

 tails for at present. 



Some who look forward to the time when timber scarcity will 

 cause prices to advance sharply, expect the timber on government 

 land to save the day — provided the state 's rights movement does 

 not succeed in getting the timber away from the government be- 

 fore that time. It is well enough to count on government timber 

 to help, but it should not be blindly depended upon to keep prices 

 down. In the first place, there is not enough of it — only one-fifth 

 of the whole supply at present, and in the second place, it is not 

 the government's policy, and it never should be its policy, to« 

 break an honest market by underselling. All that should be ex- 

 pected of it is, to help supply the people with lumber at prices, 

 fixed by the law of supply and demand. 



The mib of the matter is that present prices of lumber are low 

 in comparison with other commodities; that they are fixed by 

 keen and general competition; and that a forecast of the future, 

 in so far as facts warrant, indioates that much higher prices than 

 the present are bound to come. 



An Unreasonable Expectation "* 



WITH ALL DUE RECOGNITION of the important part the 

 box trade has held in the marketing of low-grade lumber, 

 it is hard to recognize in certain suggestions emanating from well- 

 known individuals connected with the manufacture of boxes, the- 

 logic which would win from the lumber trade the attention de- 

 sired. It is manifestly an absurdity to ask the vendor of any 

 commodity to voluntarily dispose of his goods at less than pre- 

 vailing prices and, in view of the unfavorable position which low- 

 grade lumber of all kinds occupied for a long time, any sugges- 

 tion that a less than present market price be asked for such stock 

 has, to say the least, a very meagre chance of even being consid- 

 ered seriously. 



While it is recognized that such an expectation must be based 

 on sincere motives, still it is undoubtedly the result of a wrong^ 

 interpretation of the conditions governing the low-grade market. 

 In the first place, the present satisfactory prices are the result not 

 of any concerted efi:ort on the part of the lumber trade, but are 

 rather the result of the working of the time-honored law of 

 supply and demand. The talk of scarcity of low grades is not idle- 

 and meaningless babble, but describes an actual condition. The 

 consumers of low grades have made present prices possible, not 

 the producers. A striking proof of the validity of this assertioni 

 is shown in an experimental arrangement recently effected at a 

 northern pine shipping point. It was agreed that none of the 

 firms involved would in any case quote a price on low grades, but 

 would rather let the inquirer name his figure. There is evidence 

 to prove that this suggestion was closely followed and yet the 

 price of low-grade pine in that city advanced with astonishing: 

 rapidity. 



The second point of which the box trade has a wrong concep- 

 tion is as to the relative importance of the box trade as a l?w- 

 grade market, particularly for hardwoods. It is true, of course, 

 that a vast amount of low-grade lumber has been and always 

 will be used in box manufacture, but if the box man believes that 

 the present shortage of low-grade hardwoods is due alone to in- 

 creased demand from the box trade, he should be disillusioned. 

 As a matter of fact, lower grades in all hardwoods are meeting^ 

 with increased favor and, with a broadened market and closer 



