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flfflwol RecoM 



Copyright, The Hardwood Company, 1919 



Published in the Interest of the American Hardwood Forests, the Products thereof, and Loggingr, Saw 

 Mill and Woodworking Machinery, on the 10th and 2Sth of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Edgar H. Defebaugh, President 

 Edwin W. Meeker, Managing Editor 

 Hu Maxwell, Technical Editor 



Seventh Floor Ellsworth Building 

 53 7 So. Dearborn St., CHICAGO 

 Telephones: Harrison 8086-8087 



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Vol. XLVII 



CHICAGO, JUNE 10, 1919 



No. 4 



General Market Conditions 



Two OR THREE WEEKS AOO it was expt-ttc-el that there 

 would be a turu for the better in production of southern hard- 

 woods. During the month of May, however, tliere were something 

 like twenty-three or twenty-four rainy days out of the total month, 

 and this record has been passed so far in June. The result will 

 be that if 60% of the anticipated cut is actually realized, southern 

 lumbermen will be distinctly pleased. Logs are so scarce as to be 

 practically non-existent and all through the territory bordering 

 the Mississippi hardwood belt, mills are down all together or 

 operating only partially. Plans are perfected for great speeding 

 up just as soon as it is possible to get logs, but for the present the 

 operators must sit tight and take their medicine for it is essentially 

 impossible to go ahead. In the meantime, stocks are moving out 

 briskly and the buying trade has come around to the point where 

 it is exhibiting considerable anxiety over the inability to get lum- 

 l>er. Prices are not, generally speaking, cutting very much of a 

 figure in buying, and as the true nature of the stock situation be- 

 comes more and more apparent, the question of prices asked will 

 be of decreasing importance. 



There is not the slightest hope of making up the time lost. 

 Southern operators have been more than anxious to cut wood dur- 

 ing the past month or two, as the demand has been on the upward 

 scale all of this time and orders have mostly been filled out of 

 past accumulations. The situation is a peculiar one in that supply 

 and jiroduction are operating in directly contrary ways, even 

 though on top of such an exceedingly brisk and developing de- 

 mand as now exists, it might be expected that production would 

 go ahead with every possible stimulation. It is true that as far as 

 was possible everything has been done to increase output, but it 

 requires logs to operate a sawmill and cut lumber and if logs can- 

 not be secured the mill cannot produce. This situation is true in 

 every section through the south, and as far as the north is con- 

 cerned, that section is still suffering from the decreased log out- 

 put of last winter. Labor too is unsatisfactory and not plentiful, 

 and while the northern stocks are in better shape, comparatively 

 speaking, than are southern stocks, the actual situation is not at 

 all promising so far as adequate supplies are concerned. Export 

 ^^_^ demand also is beginning to make definite inroads into supplies for 

 - domestic markets in both northern and southern woods and a num- 



?^ 



ber of very attractive orders have come into northern manufac- 

 turers, while the southern export business is all lined up and ready 

 to go as soon as ships can be gotten to load out. One export order 



for tittytwo cars placed with one prominent southern firm was 

 recently reported and this shipment has already gone forward. 



There is every evidence that people at large have come to a 

 thorough appreciation of the staple character of the present prices 

 of building materials. Building construction is developing rapidly 

 and there is not the slightest doubt that now that the movement 

 is well under way, it will be accelerated vastly during the summer. 

 Tlic immediate future of the lumber business is rapidly evolving 

 into a ([uestion strictly of supplying the demand and there is no 

 reason for believing that this condition will be altered adversely 

 for a long time to come. 



The Forest Products Laboratory 



IT IS PROPOSED to transfer the Forest Products Laboratory at 

 Madison, Wis., to a new department of public works at Wash- 

 ington; that is, remove it from the Forest Service and place it under 

 other mangament. The proposal does not meet the approval of 

 the head officials of the Forest Service, who claim that the investi- 

 gation of wood ought to remain in the hands of men who under- 

 stand trees, because the connection between trees and wood is very 

 close. 



The argument seems to be sound; yet it was long currently 

 reported that a sentiment existed in the Forest Service itself that 

 the forester's business related to the growing of forests and not to 

 the manufacturing of wood. 



Whether any sentiment of that kind still exists in the Forest 

 Service was maintained some years ago in Chicago, au«l at the time 

 it was understood that the reason for maintaining it in that city was 

 Service was maintained some years in Chicago, and at the time it 

 was understood that the reason for maintaining it in that thy was 

 that Chicago was the lumber center and wood-using center of the 

 United States, though it laid no claim to being a forest center. In 

 course of time the office in Chicago was closed and its working 

 force and equipment were transferred to the Madison laboratory, 

 to Washington, D. C, and to other points where the Forest Service 

 was carrying on work. 



The present movement to take the laboratory out of tlic control 

 of the Forest Service may be in pursuance of the same line of 

 argument that was heard when the Chicago office was closed, 

 namel}', that it is the forester's function to deal with forests, and 

 somebody else 's to deal with the wood after it leaves the forest. 



Be that as it may, the Madison laboratory has become very 

 popular with lumbermen. Its investigations have been a great 



