A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 249 



TABLE 2. Tentative distribution of national lumber consumption for 1912 and 1928 



As a matter of fact, the period from 1919 to 1929 witnessed a boom 

 in construction. Not only did the building industry reach a peak, 

 but both general industrial output and consumption of general goods 

 were at a maximum. This would suggest that a lumber consumption 

 for 1928, even larger than that of 1912, might have been expected. 

 And if lumber use had merely followed general trends, the year 1928 

 would have seen a per capita consumption at least equal to that of 

 1912, and on that basis alone the total consumption would have been 

 54 billion board feet. But the fact of a 5.6 billion feet decline remains. 



FACTORS AFFECTING TRENDS OF LUMBER USE IN CONSTRUCTION 



Construction, particularly as regards the use of lumber, can be 

 separated into rural and urban classes. Urban construction can be 

 further divided into two distinct types residential and nonresiden- 

 tial. Table 3 presents a tentative distribution of lumber consumption 

 in these major fields of construction, as explained in the course of the 

 discussion. 



THE PASSING OF AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION 



The farm is one of our greatest markets for lumber. The total 

 number of farms in the United States has remained almost stationary 

 in the neighborhood of 6} million for the past two decades, whereas 

 during the previous two decades the number increased at an average 

 rate of 90 thousand annually. 



TABLE 3. Tentative distribution of direct-to-construction lumber, 1912 and 1928 



In other words, by 1910 agriculture had passed the period of expan- 

 sion so typical of our earlier history. Prior to 1910, if we assume 

 50,000 board feet as a reasonable estimate of the lumber required for 

 the average farm fully equipped, there was a prospective market for 

 4K billion feet of lumber annually for 90,000 new farms. Inasmuch 

 as the process of equipping a farm usually extends over a number of 

 years, the full loss of this market would not be felt immediately, but 

 should show itself definitely within a decade or two after expansion 

 had ceased. 



