326 



SELLING LUMBER 



Fibre Board 

 In the Box 

 Industry 



Tile, Slate 

 and Patent 

 Roofing 



Substitutes 

 Displace 10 

 Billion Feet 

 of Lumber 



what it is more satisfactory than wood, and while it has displaced 

 to quite an extent the use of certain kinds of wood, it has aided 

 their use in other ways, owing to the fact that such large quanti- 

 ties of wood are demanded in the building of concrete structures. 

 What concrete has done in reality is to decrease the amount of 

 high grade material, and increase the amount of low grade de- 

 manded. 



Fibre board has made quite a serious inroad in the box in- 

 dustry. Statistics compiled by the United States Forest Service 

 a few years ago showed that of the boxes then in use about 90 

 per cent were of wood, and 10 per cent of fibre. This indicates 

 that of the 5,000,000,000 feet of lumber annually going into boxes 

 one-tenth, or 500,000,000 feet have been displaced by the use of 

 fibre board. The competition has been mainly in the smaller 

 packages where strength has not been an important factor. The 

 main disadvantages of the fibre box are that it cannot stand wet- 

 ting, that the contents suffer a considerable loss from rats in ware- 

 houses, and it cannot stand rough handling. The use of the fibre 

 box has resulted in very much increased claims for damage on 

 the part of the shipper, even though the tendency is to handle the 

 fragile package more carefully. 



Tile, slate and patent roofings have likewise reduced the mar- 

 ket for wooden shingles. This has been accomplished not so much 

 through any great merit, and certainly not on account of price, 

 for the wooden shingles are lower in cost, but mainly through ad- 

 vertising, and the situation insead of improving is growing worse, 

 and may even result in the shingle manufacturers being obliged 

 to make their product fire-resistant before it is put on the market. 



Summing up, it is estimated that the substitute manufac- 

 turers are displacing annually about 10,000,000,000 feet of lum- 

 ber, or 25 per cent of the normal production. Furthermore, some 

 of the substitutes, such as steel freight cars, asphalt shingles and 

 metal lath are comparatively new and their influence in the fu- 

 ture will be even greater than at present. It is also worthy of note 

 that the unit cost of manufacturing several of the substitutes 

 has decreased, such as cement, for example, while the unit cost 

 of manufacturing most wooden articles has increased. 



T<5 offset the inroads of the substitutes is needed a country- 

 wide educational campaign on the merits of wood for the various 

 uses to which it is put. Such a campaign if backed up by au- 

 thentic data and information would accomplish much. There is 



