AMERICAN LUMBER IN FOREIGN MARKETS. 



43 



as ail experiment and to try the market. I do not think, however, fche 

 result of the ventures was at all successful. 



Speaking in general in regard the business of exporting lumber and 

 hard woods from the Argentine Kepublic, it may be said that it has not 

 been profitable in the past, and it has to be managed on a different 

 basis to reach to any great proportions in the future. The great draw- 

 back to a successful prosecution of the industry results from the fact, 

 in the first place, that even the most accessible forests are so remote 

 from tide water that the cost of freight is out of proportion to that 

 for which the hard woods of Central America and portions of Brazil can 

 be sent to market. It is true that, at certain seasons of high water 

 ocean-going vessels can be loaded far up the Parana, and even Para- 

 guay, and thus convey their cargoes, without breaking bulk, to their 

 trans- Atlantic destination. But in many cases, the lumber has to be 

 brought down in small craft, or latas, and reshipped, thus making 

 another handling necessary. And in the second place the appliances 

 for handling logs and heavy timber on the upper rivers are so primi- 

 tive and the laborers so inefficient that the getting out of it is very 

 expensive. 



IMPORTS OF LUMBER. 



As long as the people of this part of the Argentine Republic, for 

 ordinary carpentry and building purposes, are able to procure the pines 

 and spruces from North American ports with as little trouble and 

 expense as they have been doing in the past, it is not probable that 

 there will be very great attention paid to the heavy hard woods of this 

 country. Of course the shipments of North American soft woods vary 

 according to the demands of the trade. When everything is " boom- 

 ing " the requirements of the country are greater than when there is 

 general stagnation in business. The crisis, which has been so severe 

 for several years past, has been especially felt in house building, house 

 furnishing, estancia fencing, and general construction ; and the receipts 

 of lumber from abroad, which reached their highest figures in 1889, have 

 since then shown a great contraction. 



The following table, which I have in great part compiled from the 

 official returns, shows the value of the importations of lumber into the 

 Argentine Republic since the year 1870, inclusive: 



