158 AMERICAN LUMBER IN FOREIGN MARKETS. 



is of extraordinary quality and dimensions, makes successful competition with Vhe 

 Slavonian wainscoting. Last year it happened for the first time that more than 30 

 per cent of the Slavonian wainscoting production remained unsold, and had to be 

 8 tored by the owners, partly on the docks in England and partly in Fiume, and 

 consequently the effects are already felt. In former years the wainscoting was 

 immediately sold at the annual forest sales after the timber had been bought from 

 the Government. It formed the quasi basis of the forest acquisitions, because in 

 that way the money was returned the quickest, but this year there are still several 

 lots unsold. 



It is a well-known fact that our country has, during the last thirty years, experi- 

 enced many surprises from the United States. Not only have American grain, bacon, 

 and lard caused depression in our agricultural products, but in wood we have also 

 felt the burden of American competition, which is known, so far, only to initiated 

 circles. It is true that this competition concerned one kind of wood, which does 

 not play such a part in the world's market as does our oak wood; we mean the great 

 depression, about fifteen years ago, in the value of larch wood. From 1870 to 1880 

 the Carinthian larch wood was very much sought after and sold as dear as oak. For 

 certain purposes preference was given to it. The Imperial and Royal arsenal at Pol a 

 used great quantities of it annually until the American pitch pine made its appear- 

 ance and crowded out the larch wood not only from the world's market but from our 

 home market. The arsenal in Pola has been importing for many years American 

 pitch pine, which is superior in quality to larch, besides being sold in huge dimen- 

 sions and, according to our ideas, at extremely low prices. 



The price of larchwood fell continually and the high-priced forest tracts covered 

 with larch timber in Carinthia have been so reduced in value that they are almost 

 down to the level of the common pine- wood forests, while formerly they were valued 

 five times as high, and even more. And now the United States appear very quietly 

 in the world's markets as a competitor with our oak, which causes great uneasiness 



among our home oak trade. 



******* 



In consequence of the low price of land in the United States ; the fact that no labor 

 has been expended in forest production; the highly developed means of communica- 

 tion, waterways extending everywhere, which are the cheapest means of transporta- 

 tion, etc., the Americans have great advantages over us; therefore, it is evident that 

 this competition has all the qualifications of becoming a great danger to our oak- wood 

 export. This danger, on account of the extraordinary spirit of enterprise of the 

 American people and their unlimited individual liberty, is no longer theoretical but 

 actually confronts us. One Vienna firm dealing in German coopers' wood followed 

 carefully the transaction of the American oak-wood workers. A member of that 

 firm made a trip to the United States for that purpose. This firm took along 400 

 skillful and able wood-cutters from our maritime country. These men worked, at 

 what was there considered the very low price of $1.50 to $2 per day, the most choice 

 and magnificent oak timber in great quantities. 



Another Vienna firm sent a representative to the United States for the purpose of 

 studying the oak-wood exploitation there. A Buda-Pesth house is on the point of 

 doing the same. All this is certainly praiseworthy, but what can a single individual 

 accomplish in such case? It would be advisable for all the Austrian and Hungarian 

 firms dealing in oak wood to unite and send an expedition on a large scale to the 

 United States for the purpose of studying minutely this dangerous competition. 

 The money question for such expedition would hardly be any obstacle, and assist- 

 ance from the Government, in the form of recommendations to the Austro-Hunga- 

 rian consuls in the United States, would not be wanting. If only a part of what is 

 said of this American competition is true the same fate which met our larch wood 

 will meet our oak. It is therefore for the interest of all the dealers in oak, and 

 especially for the Hungarian State, because it owns the largest oak forests, to fit out 

 such an expedition without delay. 



