Marketing of Eastern White Pine Lumber 

 from Maine and New Hampshire 



By Oliver P. Wallace and Elliot L. Amidon* 



I. Introduction 



IN terms of volume of lumber production, eastern white pine is New Eng- 

 land's most important forest species. Over half the lumber produced in 

 New England is white pine. Three quarters of this lumber is the output 

 of Maine and New Hampshire sawmills. In 1956 Maine produced 262 

 million board feet of white pine lumber, two-thirds of the state's total 

 lumber production; New Hampshire produced 176 million board feet of 

 white pine lumber, 70 percent of its lumber production. 



In 1957 the University of New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, in cooperation with the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, U. S. 

 Forest Service, undertook an exploratory study of: (1) the flow of white 

 pine lumber through the marketing channels to its final end uses, (2) the 

 major factors influencing the marketing process, and (3) the quantity and 

 quality of eastern white pine lumber produced in New Hampshire and Maine 

 during 1956. Since a comprehensive regional study of a similar nature will 

 soon be conducted,f the experience gained in the methods of securing and 

 analyzing the information are additional benefits from the study that may 

 prove to be as valuable as the factual data obtained. 



Sawmills in Maine and New Hampshire were stratified by production 

 size class and a random sample was drawn from each stratum. As originally 

 conceived, this sample would have provided a basis for estimating the pro- 

 portion of all white pine lumber in both states which was produced and 

 sold by various categories. However, some of the reporting sawmills were 

 not independent producing and marketing units. Rather, a firm owned, 

 contracted, or financed one to several sawmill units whose marketing prac- 

 tices were determined by the parent organization. Information was usually 

 not available for the production and sales of individual sawmill units, but 

 a total was provided by an owner for the production and sales of all of 

 his mills. Sawmill owners reported production and sales for all sawmills 

 owned, contracted, or financed to such an extent that their marketing prac- 

 tices were determined by the parent organization. Thus the sample unit 

 changed from the sawmill to the sawmill owner, the logical sampling unit 

 for a marketing study. Information was not available on the total popula- 

 tion of sawmill ownerships. 



* Dr. Wallace is Associate Professor in the Forestry Department, University of 

 New Hampshire, and Associate Forester in the Agricultural Experiment Station. Mr. 

 Amidon is Forester, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, U. S. Forest Service, 

 Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. 



t Northeastern Regional Research Project NEM-24, Marketing of Northeastern 

 Lumber. 



