28 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



From 1900 to 1910 the increase in the average prices of horses 

 and mules was: 



1900 1910 Increase 



Horses $44.61 $108.19 142.6 



Mules 53.55 119.84 123.6 



The study of the above tables, showing the high percentage of 

 increases of prices of farm products, will certainly convince you 

 that the lumberman is not a very good farmer; and you must fur- 

 ther remember that many of these commodities the lumberman had 

 to buy in order to feed his stock. 



Now I have here some extracts from the year book of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture for 1910, which are authoritative, inter- 

 esting, and I think possibly will not be too long. They say: 



"The farmer has benefited more than others from the changed 

 conditions which have manifested themselves in increased cost of 

 living. For instance, the product of one acre of corn in 1899 was 

 worth on the farm $8.51, but ten years later it was worth $15.20, 

 an increase in farm value amounting to 78.6 per cent. Similarly, 

 wheat increased in farm value 114 per cent, tobacco 56.2 per cent, 

 and cotton 65.6 per cent. Ten leading crops taken together — in- 

 cluding, besides those mentioned, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, 

 potatoes, and hay — increased 72.7 per cent in farm value. 



"This, of course, is no advantage to the farmer if the increase 

 in price of the things he has to buy is still greater. To ascertain 

 the facts in this matter, the Bureau of Statistics sent a letter to a 

 large number of retail dealers doing business with farmers. These 

 dealers were asked to quote the prices which prevailed in 1899 

 and in 1909, taking care to compare articles of the same grades. 

 In this way the percentage of increase in the prices of about 

 eighty-five articles commonly used by the farmers was determined. 



"In three cases the prices were less in 1909 than in 1899; in 

 four cases they Were the same; but in all other cases they ha<l in- 

 creased, the increases running from 2.7 per cent in the case of 

 manure spreaders and mowers to 53.8 per cent in the case of 

 brooms. Coffee increased 9.8 per cent; flour, 32.4; salt, 14.9; sugar. 

 8.7; overalls, 22.9; rubber boots, 29; calico, 26.9; muslin, 25; and so 

 on. For all the articles considered, the average increase was 12.1 

 per cent. 



"Now compare this with the 72.7 per cent increase in the farm 

 value of the ten leading crops. The farmer has evidently bene- 

 fited more than the rest of the community — taken all together — 

 from the changes in values. ' ' 



The year book goes on to say that the increased purchasing 

 power of one acre of farm crops is largely due to the increase in 

 the output per acre. The Department of Agriculture takes a 

 great deal of credit to itself for the increased yield per acre which 

 has made the farmer so prosperous; but if you take these same 

 statistics and chase them back for the last twenty or thirty years, 

 you will find that there has been mighty little increase in our pro- 

 duction per acre of cotton, wheat, oats, or any of these crops — a 

 very small percentage. 



The average yield per acre for the last ten years, comparing 

 United States and Germany, is as follows: 



United States Germany 

 Bushels Bushels 



Com 26 



Wheat 14 30 



Oats 29 50 



Barley 26 35 



Rye 16 25 



Potatoes 92 20U 



So our farmer has not been very efficient after all. It looks a 

 little as if the farmer has been as wasteful and inefficient as the 

 lumberman has ever been accused of being. He has simply had 

 more good luck. A Department of Agriculture exjjert says in the 

 May World 's Work that all the staple farm crops now produced 

 in forty-eight states could be grown on the improved land in four- 

 teen states with 26,000,000 acres to spare. So the farmer has not 

 improved his methods very much after all, but things have been in 

 his favor. One of the big things that has been in his favor is the 

 fact that according to the census reports, practically fifty per cent 

 of the people of the United States now live in cities, whereas in 



1860 less than twenty-five per cent — I think twenty-two per cent — 

 comprised our urban population. The people have gone into the 

 cities and have become consumers instead of producers. The total 

 production of farm products has increased little, if at all. 



Now the lumberman is up against many kinds of trouble. Of 

 course he has a ' ' trust ' ' — a perfectly wonderful ' ' trust. ' ' The 

 lumber trade is not a trust, yet, according to one authority — "This 

 organization has thousands of members in all parts of the country, 

 man}' of them presumably men of independent minds and prefer- 

 ences; and they are so perfectly disciplined that at the appear- 

 ance of one little signal, all act together like a drilled army. It 

 has all the business territory of the United States so mapped out 

 and divided that its prices rule everywhere, and its members, 

 under the control of its formulated principles, dominate and pos- 

 sess the trade. 



"It attacks recalcitrants and outsiders, drives them out of busi- 

 ness, closes yards and factories, terrorizes alien manufactures, 

 scrutinizes the private books, records and letter-files of its oppo- 

 nents, has its spies in every unfriendly establishment, studies and 

 follows every suspected shipment, keeps incessant watch on sus- 

 pected business men, maintains a horde of well-trained detectives, 

 bribes employes, scatters hush-money, dogs witnesses. It has ex- 

 erted its influence over courts, public officers, administrations, leg- 

 islatures, Congress and political parties. Composed of a great 

 number of diverse elements, it is compact, secret, efficient, most 

 ably managed, and while three-fourths of its members have no 

 idea of its own activities, they follow, support and obey it with 

 unquestioning faith. 



' ' Manufacturers were brought closely together, retailers were 

 brought closely together; then manufacturers, wholesalers and re- 

 tailers were induced to work together faultlessly for a common 

 end. 



"High prices were assured, profits made certain, competition 

 was practically obliterated. ' ' 



You see what a wonderful octopus you are, and you can realize 

 the things that the lumberman is up against. Now, when I read 

 this, I was inspired to do a little sleuthing myself on the trail of 

 this mysterious octopus, and so I went to a couple of members 

 of our association and they turned their records over to me, and 

 the results of their experiences are rather surprising. I have no 

 doubt whatever that they can be duplicated in other localities. 

 The concerns that I investigated were located in Wisconsin and 

 Michigan. I found that a stock of 8,000,000 feet of hemlock lum- 

 ber was shipped from November 1, 1910, to October 31, 1911. De- 

 ducting freight, commissions, discounts, allowances, cost of mill- 

 work and loading, the receipts for the lumber in the pile rough at 

 the mill were exactly $10.00 per M. This was for a stock which 

 ran 56 per cent No. 1, 20 per cent No. 2 and 2-i per cent No. 3 — 

 slightly better than the average. Taxes, insurance, interest and 

 selling expense amounted to $1.00 per M — making a net price of 

 $9.00 per M. Sawing cost $2.75 per M — leaving $6.25 for the 

 lumber in the log. Logging and carrying to the mill cost $7.00 

 per M log scale at the lowest calculation. Allowing 30 per cent 

 over-run, this amounted to $5.40 per M feet of lumber, or but 

 little more than actual operating cost, with no allowance for 

 stumpage, taxes and interest on standing timber. Were the mill 

 so situated that all the lath, tanbark and mill waste could be 

 marketed at a fair price, the net return from these products would 

 uot amount to more than $1.75 per M feet of lumber. 



Another example — a well-managed firm, which did a large busi- 

 ness in 1911, received $6.44 per M for its No. 3 hemlock. The 

 manufacturing cost — i. e., sawing, piling, shipping and selling — 

 was $3.69 per M, and administration cost — i. e., office expense, sal- 

 aries, depreciation, interest and taxes — $2.84 per M — a total of 

 $6.53; logging cost $4.50, and delivery to the mUl, $1.20, or $5.70 

 per M feet of lumber, making the total cost $11.73 for lumber 

 which sold for $6.44, with no allowance for stumpage, which per- 

 haps should not be charged against the cull product. On its entire 

 hemlock sales of 10,000,000 feet, this firm received a net price of 

 $9.73 per M, against a production cost of $10.82, with stumpage 



