364 SELLING LUMBER 



grades were soon lowered in value to a level of the poorer grades. 

 The manufacturers realized that something must be done to 

 standardize grades if they were ever to standardize values and 

 secure prices commensurate with costs of production. They were 

 able to control their logging end; could compare the cost of man- 

 ufacture and correct any material defects and differences, but 

 owing to the irregularity of the grades, their prices were accord- 

 ingly irregular and too elastic. Finally committees fom the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley Lumber Manufacturers' Association, and, what 

 was then known as the Wisconsin Lumber Manufacturers' Asso- 

 ciation, met in conference, and Mr. George ' H. Long, then with 

 the Northwest Lumber Company, Eau Claire, Wis., now with 

 Weyerhauser Lumber Company, Tacoma, was made chairman of a 

 joint committee selected for the purpose of standardizing the manu- 

 facture and grades. Too much credit cannot be given Mr. Long 

 for formulating what was later adopted in joint session by both 

 Stability associations, uniform rules of manufacture and grading, based on 



in Northern mO st intelligent ideas. Practically all the mills along the Missis- 

 Lumber .... 

 Prices sippi River and in Wisconsin and Minnesota adopted these rules, 



and but a short time elapsed ere they secured uniformity in man- 

 ufacture and inspection. There followed gradually and naturally 

 more uniformity of prices. I think you will bear me out in my 

 statement that during the trying times the yellow pine manu- 

 facturers have experienced in the numerous fluctuations in their 

 prices, Northern pine values have held uniformly firm with com- 

 paratively little difference between the various manufacturers' 

 prices. A net price-list means something; the retail and consum- 

 ing trade of the United States have felt for many years that a 

 price-list issued by any of the various manufacturers composed of 

 the Northern Pine Manufacturers' Association, represented with 

 reasonable accuracy the selling value of their products. Their 

 price-lists were not issued subject to cuts of from $5 to $15 per 

 thousand. The trade has become educated to know that it meant 

 a price-list of real values, subject only to slight fluctuations never 

 to concessions of from $5 to $15 per thousand, as is the custom 

 in making yellow pine prices. Traveling men in quoting dealers 

 do not use the term "such and so much off," "so and so's" list, 

 but quote stated prices delivered to a given point, with closer con- 

 sideration for the actual value of the stock. 



