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Marketing the Short Lengths 



It is too bad that iu the economy of nature all the trees didn't 

 grow so as to produce nothing but firsts and seconds, 14 and 16 feet 

 long. Unfortunately, howe^•er, timber is imperfect, like man; there 

 are knots and shakes and other defects, and there are stunted little 

 trees that weren't intended to produce extra long lumber; while not 

 •even the gi-eatest mathematician could squeeze long boards out 

 of all the parts of the tree. 



Con?cquently the lumberman who is confronted with the task of 

 selling the product of the mill, and finds that he must dispose of a 

 good many boards that are legrettably short, compared with the 

 lengths which the consuming manufacturer declares that he must 

 have, uecessarily has to give a good deal of thouglit to the problem 

 of finding a satisfactory outlet for them. 



He may do one of two things: either sell his Imnber just as it 

 runs, with the buyer taking a chance on the length question, or pick 

 out the long stuff and sell it at a premium to the man who insists 

 that he must have it, at the same time accumulating left-overs of 

 short stuff w)iicli must be disposed of. While a lot of lumber is sold, 

 •especially to furniture manufacturers and others who can use a great 

 variety of cuttings, without a great deal of emphasis on lengths, 

 the widths constituting the main question, interior finish manufac- 

 turers are the ones who lieep after the lumbermen about lengths. 

 Most of them either buy with a guarantee as to length, with say 

 33% per cent 14' and 16' or, what amounts to the same thing, exact 

 a statement from the seller that the lumber will contain a satisfactory 

 amount of long. So in the end it amounts to making sure of giving 

 the interior finish man a big percentage of long stuff, either directly, 

 by making a charge for it, or indirectly, in order to hold his 

 business. 



Selling the long lumber is comparatively easy, the main question 

 being one of getting the price. If consumers can be found — and 

 they are to be located without much difiiculty — who will pay a good 

 stiff' premium for their long liunber, it doubtless pays the lumberman 

 to lay out those dimensions for that particular trade, though of course 

 he then has left on his hands a lot of short stuff, which must be sold 

 as short without the redeeming feature of a few thousand feet of 

 long to color it up. 



^lost consumers believe that tlie premium they are asked to pay for 

 long, that is, the difference between the price of run-of-pile stuff 

 and extra Icngtiis, is ample to cover the difference in value. On the 

 other hand, the lumberman who sees only this premium, without realiz- 

 ing that he has destroyed much of the salability of his stock, is likely 

 to make the mistake of thinking that he has made good money on the 

 sale, whether he succeeds in moving the remainder promptly at a fair 

 price or not. And there 's the rub. If the short stuff sticks around 

 for a few months longer than it should, the mere interest on the 

 investment, without figuring the possibilities of turning the money 

 over profitably in other sales, is going to reduce the profit margin, 

 when the lumber is actually sold, to a rather low figure. 



Thus, in the last analysis, the question of the success or failure of 

 the plan of picking out the long stuff depends on this factor: Has 

 the short stuff remaining been moved at a good price within a rea- 

 sonable time? Consequently the whole story, from the standpoint 

 of the lumberman, lies in disposing of short lengths. 



A shrewd wholesale hardwood man in one of the leading markets 

 of the Ohio valley stated to the writer not long ago that he sincereh- 

 believed a lot of consumers, especially interior finish men, were 

 •deceiving themselves badly in pushing too hard for long stuff. 



' ' Why, ' ' he said, ' ' I know of a block of good chestnut, 10' long, 

 with some 12' in the lot, which can be had for $5 or $6 a thousand 

 less than lumber containing 14' and 16' lengths. Yet a lot of con- 

 sumers shy at the first lot, just because it 's short stuff, without 

 stopping to consider the difference in cost, and what it amounts 

 to in the long run. If a manufacturer of this kind buys 50,000 feet 

 of chestnut, with a guarantee of a third long boards, and pays $5 

 a thousand more than he would have to pay for the short stuff 

 I am referring to, the lot has cost him $250 more ; and this extra 



not merely 



cost IS concentrated on the long, naturally, making its price actuaUy 

 •$15 a thousand more than was paid for the short. It doesn't seem 

 to me to be possible that there is that much difference in value. ' ' 



The case cited is of course extreme. Ordinarly the difference in 

 the price is not as much as that indicated, and for the general run 

 of trade the added cost of long lumber is not as much greater as 

 suggested; but neverthless the instance quoted serves to make the 

 point tliat consumers do sometimes set up long lengths as a kind of 

 fetish, and iu striving to get material which wUl fit into their busi- 

 ness most readily tliey pay prices which are more than the lumber 

 is worth to them. 



This is not decrying the value of long lumber, by any means ; as a 

 matter of fact, a manufacturer of interior finish stated recently that 

 there are, many cases in his business when long stuff 

 desirable, but necessary. 



"Of course," he explained, "we can use a lot of short lengths, 

 making heads and aprons and other short dimension stuff after we 

 have cut the full casing lengths out of boards of that size. But 

 \ihen we come to making long ceiling beams, baseboards, and other 

 stoels which will not splice readily, we just have to have long lumber. 

 The tendency nowadays to build bungalows and other similar types 

 of homes with exceptionally large rooms has called for a greater 

 percentage of long lumber in the interior finish trade, and that is 

 one reason why the purchase of much exclusively short-length lumber 

 would not appeal to me, unless the price were mighty low. In that 

 case I could buy enough special lengths to take care of my require- 

 ments. Personally, though, I prefer to buy the regular run of lumber, 

 with the proviso that if it doesn't run properly as to lengths it won't 

 be accepted. " 



And the consumer is, of course, in a position to enforce this pro- 

 vision, so that many lumbermen make a special point of giving their 

 customers among the planing-mUl and interior-finish trade better 

 lengths than the price really justifies, simply because they know that 

 this character of stock is needed, making it all the harder on the 

 man who solicits this trade with nothing but short stock to offer. 

 In the interior finish trade, as in many others, however, the dimen- 

 sions of the lumber form a secondary consideration to the intelli- 

 gence of the men at the saws. Some sawyers and cutters in a factory 

 of this kind can get all that is necessary out of what would ordinarily 

 be regarded as short stuff; while others will make kindling wood out 

 of long boards. But when the mill has a good, practical crew of men 

 at work, with a careful foreman, who sees that m working up each 

 job the long cuttings are made first, before the short are touched, in 

 order that there may be an opportunity to get the hard sizes out of 

 the stock before it is cut into for the easier dimensions, good results 

 can be secured with a minimum of long stock. 



Lumbei-men with short lengths to dispose of have found that the 

 matter of separating as to width plays an important part. In lines 

 consuming poplar, for example, it has become well known that when 

 the lumber is piled for width it is much more desirable from the 

 standpoint of the user. 



The big advantage of this plan is not only that a better price can 

 frequently be realized for each width, sold separately, than if random 

 dimensions were oft'ered, but that placing the emphasis on the width 

 helps to distract attention from the matter of length. In other 

 words, instead of allowing the shortness of the boards to make them 

 undesirable in the eyes of the customer, a negative quality is trans- 

 formed into a positive one by concentrating on width and leading 

 with this feature. This is not only a practical, useful plan which 

 saves effort on the part of both Imnberman and consumer, but also 

 has something of applied psychology back of it. 



There is an occasional market for short stuff, offered merely that 

 way without the protection of special widths. One manufacturer 

 who formerly made up his short poplar into lath, netting only a fair 

 return, found a man who could use all of his short stuff without 

 its being worked, so that he is getting a little more than before, 

 without the trouble and investment required to convert it into lath. 



—23— 



