January 10, 1916 





The Outlook for 1916 



a. 



By E. B. Goodman of the Goodman 



The lumber industr_v defined as the process 

 of liquidating stumpage by manufacturing 

 trees into lumber, is facing a year of prom- 

 ise. Once more the lumberman is beginning 

 to get something for his tree. The horizon 

 looms with new opi)ortunities, new problems. 

 A fair and reasonable degree of prcTsperity 

 seems to be assured. Yet the situation is 

 by no means without its danger, and many 

 thoughtful lumbermen believe the industry 

 is now facing the most difficult situation that 

 has presented itself since the famous year 

 of 1907. 



A year ago conditions were so plainly de- 

 fined and simple in their solution, that the 

 entire industry unanimously stood for re- 

 trenchment and conservative development. 

 There began a great forward movement in 

 co-operative effort to regulate cut, to reduce 

 the cost of production, to take up the lost 

 motion between the mill and the consumer, 

 anil to develop and extend uses of lumber. 



The trade journals assumed a higher plane 

 of usefulness than they had ever before 

 reached, both for the manufacturer, the re- 

 tailer and the manufacturing consumer. The 



technical articles presented during the year connected witli the manu- 

 facture, marketing, drying of lumber, cost accounting, merchandising 

 methods, railroad tariffs, export possibilities, wood construction, build- 

 ing codes, conuuunity development, would form a complete reference 

 library for the industry. This development of the trade journal as a 

 purveyor of technical and market news has been accompanied by a 

 tendency to let the lumbermen solve the problems of their business 

 for themselves. The older pose of paternalism has been out-grown, 

 and enlightening and impartial comment has taken ifs place in the 

 editorial columns. 



But the greatest change in lumber trade journalism and the most 

 significant is in the advertising columns. Instead of the perfunctory 

 cards of lumber firms and manufacturers of mill machinery, we find 

 real, live advertising matter. During the past three or four years this 

 change has gradually come about, but 1915 shows more columns of real 

 advertising than any two previous years. Look into your old files of 

 trade papers and see this for yourself. The page after page of adver- 

 tising you find now is not placed to help a deserving cause, but is a 

 business proposition, in which the results are tabbed as carefully, 

 perhaps more carefully, than in any other line of investment. 



The tendency toward more efficient methods which has been develop- 

 ing in all lines of industry during the past few years has, xmder the 

 stress of the low realization, made wonderful strides in the lumber 

 industry during the last twelve months. This seeking for better 

 methods and for better product has developed new practices all along 

 the great firing-line of expanse, from the forest management to mar- 

 keting. The same marvelous spirit of thrift which enabled the great 

 railroad systems to reduce their operating expenses almost in the 

 exact proportion that their gross revenue declined, has permeated all 

 branches of the lumber industry. Never before has there been so 

 great an effort to utilize the by-products of the forest and the waste 

 of the mill. Burner after burner has been discarded. By-jjroduct 

 plants are developing in multifarious variety. Larger marketing units 

 are being formed. The loss between the producer and the retailer and 

 manufacturing consumer is being eliminated. The big wholesalers of 

 lumber are becoming manufacturers, and the manufacturers by group- 

 ing three or four or more smaller mills, and working through a single 

 sales office, are becoming wholesalers. In a word, the industry has 

 been cleaning house. 





C.OODM.VN, nOODM.VN. WIS. 



Lumber Company, Goodman, Wis. 



The greatest progress made during the past 

 year has been admittedly in intelligent co-op- 

 eration. The story of the year '3 advance is 

 almost incredible. This co-operation has pro- 

 ceeded along three lines: the collection and 

 dissemination of information, collective adver- 

 tising and industrial unity. Volumes could be 

 written of work done in these lines of effort. 

 Through the highly developed statistical or- 

 ganization of the great producing associations, 

 a result has been obtained during the last 

 sixty days that should lend a glorified halo 

 to the once too carelessly considered report 

 Idank from the association secretary. In 

 these last sixty days lumber prices have ad- 

 vanced. It may be that the increased demand 

 of lumber was wholly due to causes indepen- 

 dent of the industry, but it was the sales 

 bulletins, the cut and shipment reports and 

 the apparently simple little barometer that 

 liad back of it accurate production figures, 

 weekly returns of orders and shipments from 

 a great producing region, that put the price 

 of lumber all over the United States to where 

 it economically belonged, by virtue of exist- 

 ing supply and demand, immediately and 

 pioiuijtly, thus giving the advance to the producer who needed it to 

 save him from actual loss. The history of the lumber market for the 

 jiast sixty days has justified association machinery for collecting and 

 disseminating information on market conditions. 



Equally plain demonstration could be made of the value of co- 

 operative advertising of lumber carried on by the various associa- 

 tions. The simple fact that every association that has expended 

 money for advertising is now planning to increase its appropriation 

 for the coming year, means volumes. The straws by which the way of 

 the wind is determined; inquiries are the first direct result. These 

 inquiries come in almost overwhelming volume from the few hundred a 

 month from the modest advertising of birch panels, to nine thousand 

 inquiries a week now piling up for southern pine. Cypress a year ago 

 was an almost isolated example of successful lumber advertising. 

 Now the list of woods runs to nearly a dozen, and the annual appro- 

 priation to nearly half a million dollars. This advertising does not 

 claim credit for the recent revival of lumber trade, nor is its aim to 

 create higher prices. What it is universally trying to do, and what it 

 is slowly accomplishing, is better understanding amongst the con- 

 sumers of the nation as to the right, proper and economical uses for 

 which wood, and the various kinds of wood, are adapted. Only thus 

 can be laid a firm foundation for stable conditions in the lumber 

 industry. 



The third line of association progress has been the most fundamen- 

 tal, the deepest and therefore the least obvious and perhaps the least 

 appreciated by lumbermen themselves. This is the process of unifica- 

 tion that has taken place most markedly during the past year. There 

 have always been great national problems for the industry to face. 

 There have alweys been sincere attempts on the part of the leaders of 

 the industry to meet on common ground to solve them, but only dur- 

 ing the last twelve months have the beginnings of a real, underlying 

 unity in the industry appeared; in the gathering of the funds for 

 national trade extension work; in the presenting of the conditions of 

 the industry from North to South and from East to West before the 

 Federal Trade Commission, and in consideration of the re-classifica- 

 tion of lumber rates before the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 

 these matters the lumber producers of the whole nation meet together 

 to the common interest of all. From the Pacific states, from the 

 South, from the Atlantic Coast, from the Inland Empire, come repre- 



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