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Copyright, The Hardwood Company, 1919 



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

 Mill and Woodworking Machinery, on the 10th and 25th 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, JULY 25, 1919 



No. 7 



Review and Outlook 



General Market Conditions 



ABIRDSEYE PICTURE OF THE HAEDWOOD MARKET situa- 

 tion presents very much the same picture as would a shell- 

 torn battlefield to an aviator flying a few hundred feet over a 

 Yankee barrage. It is all a matter of eruptions and with tlie pre- 

 dominant hope being that eventually the atmosphere will clear 

 itself and both the seller and buyer will know what the market 

 value of any product is. Today Remand is going ahead practically 

 without ceasing and almost every week brings into the consuming 

 •field a new factor which helps boost the market for hardwood 

 products. A very significant development during the past week has 

 been the discovery that the important territory centering around 

 Memphis had in the preceding month booked orders from the whole- 

 sale lumber dealers totalling 28 per cent of the orders accejited from 

 that territor}-. The significance of this information lies in the . 

 fact that the wholesale lumber trade in general is pretty well alive 

 to the actual facts governing the buying markets and is thoroughly 

 convinced that the time to buy is now, and that delay would be 

 suicidal. This conception of the importance of the wholesalers 

 activity is true beyond a doubt. No man in the wholesale lumber 

 business is going to invest a large portion of his working capital 

 in hardwood lumber at present prices unless he is absolutely con- 

 vinced that the future holds an even higher scale of values. The 

 wholesaler has no way of getting his money out of his lumber ex- 

 cept to make a direct resale of that particular lumber. If he is not 

 absolutely convinced that he can make such a resale at a higher 

 price than he paid, h? is not going to make the original investment. 



This development, however, is but one of many evidences of con- 

 tinued strength in the hardwood market. It has been argued that 

 the buying trade could not afford to meet the present lumber prices. 

 As a matter of fact, though, the furniture trade which after the 

 wholesalers has been buying most of the hardwood lumber had a 

 bigger sale of furniture during the July period than ever before, 

 and a very large percentage of these sales was made with the price 

 open and subject to current market quotations at the time of ship- 

 ment. Thus the furniture manufacturer has protected himself on 

 rising cost of raw material and is not going to be able to afford to 

 adopt a hesitating policy in view of the extreme shortage of hard- 

 woods and the abnormal call for furniture. 



The building trade is becoming more and more a factor every 

 day. In fact, it has been a very important factor in strongly boost- 

 ing the price of plain oak and similar woods going into trim. An 

 additional help in this direction has been the increasing volume of 

 •export business. The only adverse sign seems to be a slight over- 



stock at some of the European markets through consignment, but 

 it is inconceivable that this phase can be as important at this stage 

 of the export market as it is suggested as being. 



So far as the question of supply and demand is concerned, a 

 greater and greater spread is developing between these two phases 

 of marketing. Those who a short time ago had sold themselves on 

 the belief that manufacturing would catch up with demand are 

 now for the most part convinced that this is physically impossible. 

 If any are not so convinced, they should for their protection view 

 the stock situation at the mills and the supply and quality of labor 

 that prevails throughout all territory where hardwoods are being 

 produced. Lumbermen are anxious as can well be conceived to 

 manufacture as much lumber as possible on prevailing prices and 

 arc certainly <l(]ing everything they possibly can to speed up their 

 operations. However, it seems that the harder they try the more 

 difficulties they encounter. Labor is not oilly exceedingly scarce, 

 but increasingly inefficient and independent. It is not possible any 

 more, to drive mill hands to greater effort, as anj- attempt in this 

 direction results immediatelj' in insubordination and disorganiza- 

 tion of the entire crew. This holds in all mill centers. The aver- 

 age mill man is learning to put up with a good many things that 

 he would never dream of countenancing under conditions less favor- 

 able to the laboring element. The fact must not be lost sight of 

 that these difficulties in manufacturing; the labor question, the bad 

 weather conditions that have prevailed generally and other similar 

 influences have so shot the cost of production that the present 

 standard of values is not by any means exorbitant. Thus, the man 

 who anticipates a return to values prevailing a short time, ago is 

 figuring on an entirely wrong liasis as granting that for some rea- 

 son or another the market for hardwoods should cease its upward 

 tendency it would not fall below the present level as the cost of 

 manufacturing has so far advanced as to make this level one on 

 which values must be established in order to make a profit under 

 present manufacturing costs. 



The unprecedented features of the present hardwood lumber mar- 

 ket are too evident to need specific definition. Hardwood Record 

 has counciled since last December that the lumber buyer Who laid 

 in his supply of hardwoods for several months to a year ahead was 

 making a wise move, and in spite of the present high level of 

 values, it reiterates that advice. The lumber buyer is now faced 

 not only with an absolute absence of some hardwood stocks and a 

 very low volume of many others and with a lessened hardwood pro- 

 duction, all of these militating against a smooth running supply 

 in the future, but he is also faced with the imminence of a drastic 

 car shortage. 



