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Forest Products Exposition 



Editor's Note 



The following Is au address delivered by Edward A. Hamar of Cbassell. Mich 

 tional Lumber Manufacturers' Association at Kansas City, Mo., June 3 and 4. 

 When your secretary extended an invita- 



before the convention of the Na- 



tion to me to address you on a forest prod- 

 ucts exposition, I accepted, not witli a feel- 

 ing that I could in any manner do the 



subject justice, but with a firm conviction 



of the wisdom and advisability of holding 



that much discussed and long delayed expo- 

 sition. During these years of business 



aggressiveness, the lumberman, engaged in 



one of the oldest and largest industries of 



the country, has remained singularly passive 



to this means of advertising, while the 



manufacturer of other lines of building 



material, ever alert, has adopted and used 



it with marked success. Now that our 



business opponent has so ably demonstrated 



what can be done, it remains for us only 



to fall in line. 



There is no other material that can be 



used in so many and varied ways as wood. 



It is capable of variety and individuality, 

 and buildings constructed of it can be made 

 attractive and artistic. Buildings of cement 

 and brick are damp, cold and gloomy, and 

 in order to compete with wood from an 

 artistic standpoint, must be mellowed by 

 time or artificially softened with running vines, or by some oilier 

 means. Long before tliese other building materials were used to 

 any great extent in this country, wood, being the most available 

 and convertible, was a standard. The lumber industry in this 

 country had its inception, at the time the pioneer settler first 

 landed upon the bleak and uninviting New England shores, where 

 he immediately proceeded to cut timber with which to build his 

 home. As the pioneer pressed on westward toward the Mississippi 

 river in quest of new fields, he found himself surrounded by 

 great forests to which there seemed no end. From a largo part 

 of that territory the timber has been removed and it is now 

 covered witli rolling acres of fertile farms. Our timber resources 

 were vast and apparently inexhaustible. The government reports 

 show that more than one-half of the original stand, in what is 

 now the United States, is still standing. This large area is esti- 

 mated at 550,000,000 acres. A large proportion of this area is 

 now either under public domain or is held by timber holding 

 corporations. The government and, to a certain extent, these 

 corporations are doing all in their power to develop methods of 

 judicious cutting and, by reforesting, to perpetuate our forests. 

 With these conservative methods any possibility of a timber 

 famine is very remote. 



Our industry, including its numerous branches, ranks third in 

 the United States, according to the census of 1910, being exceeded 

 only by the meat packing and foundry and machine shop products 

 industries. The industry has 095,000 wage earners, a larger 

 number than any other industry, and with a value of its products 

 estimated at more than $1,000,000,000, this amount being exceeded 

 only by the meat and foundry industries, as aforestated. In a 

 country with a population of 90,000,000, which is increasing at 

 the rate of 4,000 per day, you have a consumption of housing 

 material which is based on the same vital needs as the consump- 

 tion of food products— a need which may be postponed for a 

 short period more easily perhaps than the need of food products, 

 but which merely accumulates in energy during such period. 



Lumber has been and still is one of our cheapest commodities, 

 the price being regulated largely by supply and demand, the price 

 seldom covering the cost of the raw material and operating. So 



—36— 



EHWAUD A. HAMAR, CHASSEI.L. MlCn 



cheap lias it been in the past that its cost 

 has been looked upon as a very small item 

 entering into the construction of a build- 

 ing. As the timber became more remote 

 from the streams and railroads, and as 

 more thinly forested areas were opened to 

 the lumberman, the cost of the raw ma- 

 terial naturally increased, and until the con- 

 sumer pays what it costs to grow it, as well 

 as what it costs to manufacture, the price 

 will continue to advance. The lumberman 's 

 duty under these conditions is to educate 

 tlie consumer to use lumber and to demon- 

 strate to him that it is still the cheapest 

 and most available building material. It is 

 not the high cost of lumber alone that 

 makes a building cost more now than ten 

 or twenty years ago, but the high cost of 

 other materials as well, including the high 

 cost of labor. With the idea before him 

 that lumber is dear, the consumer has very 

 naturally turned to substitutes. The manu- 

 facturer of other building materials, quick 

 to see the point gained, has pushed his ad- 

 vantage by judicious advertising through 

 the press and by holding expositions. What 

 lias tin' iiiaiiufacturor of lumber done to counteract this? Nothing 

 but a small amount of advertising. What has he done to counter- 

 act the feeling that now exists against the using of wood? Practi- 

 cally nothing. There is only one way to change the view of the 

 consumer — a campaign of education; the best method — the press 

 and a forest products exposition. When I say a forest products 

 exposition I do not mean merely an assembling of different kinds 

 of lumber, etc, but one that will display all products of the 

 forest in the raw material and in the finished, together with the 

 machinery used in );he manufacture. An exposition of this kind 

 could be made very attractive and would be much discussed. The 

 attendance would be large and the exposition self-supporting, 

 I am reliably informed that an exposition company could be 

 launched for $25,000 or $30,000, It would seem au easy matter to 

 find 200 or 300 lumbermen sufiiciently interested to furnish the 

 capital. During the past year there have been held a number of 

 expositions, among them the clay products and cement products. 

 These expositions were made attractive and interesting and were 

 well attended by people from all parts of the country. Is it at all 

 strange that a man, after visiting one of these expositions and 

 seeing the model of a house attractively built of cement or brick, 

 should decide upon his return home to build his new house of one 

 of these materials, even though he live in a community where 

 lumber is manufactured and notwithstanding the fact that a 

 wooden house is more attractive and artistic? 



A forest products exposition, to be held under the jurisdiction 

 of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association, has already 

 been endorsed by the Western Pine Manufacturers' Association, 

 the Northern Hemlock and Hardwood Manufacturers' Association, 

 the Southern Cypress Manufacturers' Association, the North Caro- 

 lina Pine Association and the Yellow Pine Manufacturers' Asso- 

 ciation, The members of these associations arc awakening to the 

 necessity of doing something to counteract the inroads made on 

 their products by the manufacturers of other building material, 

 and have heartily endorsed the plan, and a number have signified 

 their willingness to back up that endorsement with a stock 

 subscription. 



The present campaigns that arc being carried on by the different 



