Table 3. Lumber Purchases by Type of Industry — Grade 

 (Thousands of board feet) 



Grades 

 Industry I* lit Ungraded 



150 23,867 



447 

 1,356 



1,517 285 



600 



550 1,652 



26,944 2,328 26,374 



* Hardwoods - — No. 1 common and better. 



Softwoods — No. 2 common and better, sterling, standard. 

 t Hardwoods — No. 2 common and poorer. 



Softwoods — No. 3 common and poorer, construction, utility. 



The Industry 



Sawmills have and do play a major part in converting New Hamp- 

 shire's forest products into usable form. Their annual production varies 

 with the lumber market situation. Only one-quarter of the 93 sawmills 

 surveyed cut one million or more feet annually : of these, seven cut over 

 three million feet (all production, both softwoods and hardwoods). 



Sawmill owners were classified according to their marketing practices: 

 (a) producers — those selling their product to whomever they could and 

 usually not a finished product; (b) manufacturers — those whose lum- 

 ber went directly to the parent plant or by contract directly to a wood us- 

 ing industry; (c) wholesalers — those selling products primarily to man- 

 ufacturers but who purchased additional volumes for resale; and (d) re- 

 tailers — those who sold a finished product directly to consumers, the 

 sawmill being a part of their total plant. 



Producers sawed the bulk of the hardwood lumber. 17 out of a total of 

 18 million board feet. One sawmill cut over half of this producer volume. 

 The balance was cut at 36 other sawmills averaging 200 thousand board 

 feet for the yearly cut. 



Sawmill operators classed as retailers produced only 728 thousand 

 board feet of hardwood lumber. Five hundred thousand feet was cut by 

 one mill. The balance was sawed by ten other mills averaging only 23 

 thousand feet per mill. The remaining 350 thousand feet of hardwood 

 lumber was cut at six sawmills in the other three classes. Thus it is evi- 

 dent that sawmill operators in New Hampshire produce only a small 

 amount of hardwood lumber. It is sawed incidental to softwoods when a 

 few good hardwood trees are found on the areas logged. It then becomes 

 a marketing problem because of this small volume. 



The 53 wood-using industries contacted employed 2.894 people. They 

 used 55,847,000 board feet of lumber plus other wood not classed as lum- 

 ber. They manufactured furniture, furniture parts, mill work, sash, 

 doors, fixtures, toys, special parts, turnings, pails, reels, and boxes and 

 shooks. 



The type of industry probably influences lumber volume use more than 

 employment size classes. However, since some of these industries con- 

 verted wood other than lumber, plus various other resources, the number 



