Thirty-three percent of all firms market a portion of their liimher 

 directly without storage, although somewhat less than 2S percent of the 

 volume is handled in this manner. In New Hampshire and Massachusetts, 

 two-thirds of the retail yards market some lumher without storage. 



Seasoning 



Lumher seasoning by retail yards is not important in the states 

 covered by this study (Figure 17) . About 77 percent of all yards indicate 

 that no lumber is air dried by them and 96 percent indicate no kiln dry- 

 ing. Twenty-three percent of all firms indicate some lumher seasoning 

 between time of purchase and sale. 



Only a small percentage of retailers in any state kiln dry lumher 

 before selling. Those which carry out this transformation, however, are 

 dispersed throughout all size classes. Air seasoning is significantly more 

 prevalent in Maine (40%), New Hampshire (33%), and Vermont 

 (35% I where a greater percentage of lumher sales are of eastern species. 



FIGURE 17. PERCENT OF ALL RETAIL YARDS SEASONING LUMBER. 



Grading 



Approximately 90 percent of the regional retail yards do not grade 

 lumljer (Figure 18). Of the remaining 10 percent that do, only about 2 

 percent grade all they sell. The others grade only a portion of their total 

 sales volume. Those firms grading part or all of their sales volume are 

 rather evenly disbursed throughout the various size classes. Grading is 

 most important in northern New England where 31 percent of Maine 

 retailers grade to some degree as contrasted to 3 percent in West Vir- 

 ginia yards. 



25 



