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Copyright. Thk Hardwood Company, i.gjr 



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



Mill and Woodworking Machinery, on the 10th and 25th of each Month, by 



THE HARDWOOD COMPANY 



Edwin W. Meeker, Vice Pres. and Editor 

 H. F. Ake, Secretary-Treasurer 



Seventh Floor Ellsworth Building 

 53 7 So. Dearborn St., CHICAGO 

 Telephone : Harrison -8087 



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Vol. L CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 10. 1921 No. 8 



General Market Conditions 



WHEN THAT DANGER PERIOD of ultra iirosin'iity lanu- to a 

 halt with the abruptness of a railroail collision, the country 

 started grinding out anotlier cvcle of business history. The pros- 

 pect then was all black. The question on everyone's lips was 

 "What is going to happen?" Uncertainty has definitely given way 

 to an effort to bring back at least normal conditions. The average 

 citizen does not now ask, "What is going to happen,"' having been 

 convinced that there is nothing in the foundation underlying our 

 economic house to give him the slightest fear that failure and gen- 

 eral collapse will result from the present overload. The factor of 

 safety built into our national business structure has proven itself 

 to be sufficiently large to far more than cover the present emergency 

 stress. 



Having conquered the period of uncertainty, the peoples' minds 

 are focusing now on an analysis of just what is causing sustained 

 depression and when will those factors finally converge, leailing 

 the way out of the present rut. It is undoubtedly the judgment of 

 the vast majority that the break was caused when the cost of 

 living finally shocked the population into a determination to refrain 

 from buying. 



The whole future rests, according to th.e calculations of 

 the editors of Hardwood Record upon how speedily the country 

 can arrive at a permanent lower level of costs — a minimum based 

 oil logically fair reasoning involving a lower plane of figuring for 

 everyone. We must effect the stabilization which will allow us to 

 maintain a measure of the improved standard of living of our 

 average citizen and leave out the grossly immoral extravagance 

 which so many people maintained during the recent flood tide of 

 affluence. 



This stabilization will not be the result of a large number of 

 factors shifting themselves until they arrive at a happy level. It 

 will involve the process of shifting of individual factors so that 

 each will arrive in due time at the appointeil level and eventually 

 all will have found themselves and a normal state will be brought 

 about. Happily there is reasfon for the statement that certain 

 basic factors are already beginning to see light ahead. Fortunately 

 the process of improvement will piroceed in a geometrical rather 

 than an arithmetical proportion. In other words, the process of 

 general stabilization will be accelerated vastly with the return 

 of stabilized conditions in each industry. Each evidence of re- 

 newal of normal conditions will have an influence vastly greater 



than its literal inijiortance. There is aiiparent justification for 

 the belief that the loose ends are being picked u\> here and there 

 and that while we are still very much on the bottom, we are be- 

 ginning to find evidences of the trail that will take us out. 



It is Hardwood Record's belief that the wood-using industries, 

 and hence the wood-manufacturing industries, will be among the 

 leaders in recuperation. This is primarily because there are a 

 number of exceedingly important markets for lumber which are 

 basicly essential in our national life. In each case there is a tre- 

 mendous latent demand for these products, a demand which is 

 steadily accumulating and which gives a tremendous incentive for 

 renewed activity. Furthermore, both the wood-using industries 

 and the lumber manufacturing industry have filtered through the 

 jiresent difficult times in excellent financial condition and in many 

 cases have very wisely governed their producing activities to fit 

 changing markets. Thus, for instance, the general shut-down in 

 wood-using plants has resulted in the gradual working oft' of accu- 

 mulated production and in the sawmills it is daily becoming more 

 evident that the steady ebbing away of surplus stocks is causing 

 definite shortage in view of the almost total lack of production. 

 Even the elements have been a powerful factor in the lumber 

 field. The almost total absence of snow this winter has resulted 

 in dela3'ing woods operations in the North from two to four weeks. 

 Continued absence of snow caused a halt in many logging camps, 

 operators fearing that they would be unable to haul in the logs 

 accumulating on their dumps in the woods. With the winter prac- 

 tically over, this condition alone, entirely aside fr(jm curtailment 

 due to markets, will have caused a reduction in log input in the 

 northern woods of from forty to fifty per cent and in some places, 

 it is said, sixty jier cent. 



The executive responsible for shaping the raw material policies of 

 the wood-using industries should now take all the evidence into 

 consideration as governing conditions in general, as well as as con- 

 ilitions peculiar to his own field. No man can fail to come to the 

 conclusion that the worst has ])assed and that there will be in the 

 future a continued dribbling of business, which dribbling will gradu- 

 ally be accelerated until it ultimately returns to normal. The expe- 

 rienced wood-user knows the tremendous difficulty and expense 

 incident to using imperfectly dried lumber. Any wood-user who 

 makes an honest analysis of stocks on hand at the mills and an 

 even casual survey of mill production, cannot fail to arrive at the 

 conclusion that even a moderate increase in consumption would 



