THE AMERICAN LUMBER MARKET 



PART I 

 By E. B. Hazen 



[Perhaps no lumberman can speak with greater knowledge of the conditions or with more 

 authority on the subject of the American Lumber Market, than Mr. Hazen. His article, the 

 first part of which is now printed, was prepared with painstaking care and attention to detail. 

 It is a straightforward discussion and presentation of facts regarding the third greatest industry 

 in the United States and it warrants careful reading and attention. The second part will appear 

 in American Forestry for April. Editor.] 



FIFTY years ago we built of wood 

 and used white pine from the 

 North. Twenty years later we 

 built of wood, but we had a 

 choice. Yellow pine from the South 

 had become an alternative. Another 

 score of years passed and still we built 

 of wood, but chose from among the 

 woods of the North, South and West. 

 The rising cost of northern stumpage 

 gradually enabled Southern and Western 

 lumber to compete with white pine. 



Lumber is no longer the necessity 

 it used to be. Wood is only one of 

 many competing building materials. 

 In the last ten years a dozen substitutes 

 have offered themselves. Lumber must 

 now be sold by methods of competitive 

 salesmanship against products of ce- 

 ment, steel and other commodities 

 which are superior only in some uses 

 but which are merchandized so effec- 

 tively that oftentimes where wood is 

 better it is supplanted by these mater- 

 ials. 



Until recently lumber manufacturers 

 did not have to consider the importance 

 of selling. There was a universal de- 

 mand for lumber and they turned it 

 loose to find its user through whatever 

 agency would move it from the mill. 

 They concentrated their energies upon 

 the pioneering and producing end of 

 the business and became masters of the 

 science of manufacturing. Manufac- 

 turing has always held them, for they 

 are manufacturers by training, experi- 

 ence and heredity. But now, besides 

 the manufacture of supply, they must 

 undertake the manufacture of demand. 



There are two fields to consider in 

 developing the lumber market, namely, 

 the export and the domestic. The 



208 



former now consumes 10 per cent of 

 the output of the United States and 

 this proportion may be increased. The 

 export market has not been entirely 

 neglected, for the ship-chartering ex- 

 porters have satisfied the expressed 

 demand for American lumber in a 

 thorough manner, but they have not 

 created a demand nor can they be 

 expected to assume the business-creating 

 task of the producer. The manufac- 

 turer must enter the foreign field direct 

 with strong trade-developing effort. 

 Sales in some foreign markets will 

 always be limited by competition from 

 the forests of British Columbia, Mexico, 

 South America, Siberia, the Black Sea 

 and the Baltic, but the United States 

 will be the principal source of supply for 

 territory from which its product is not 

 excluded by high freight cost, and for 

 all territory seeking the best grades of 

 soft woods. Nevertheless, the domestic 

 field is the one to which the manufac- 

 turer must look for the greatest possi- 

 bilities. 



SURVEY OF DOMESTIC FIELD 



Let us divide the consumers of lumber 

 into two classes, urban and rural. 

 Two-thirds of this country's people 

 live in towns and cities. More lumber 

 is sold in thickly settled communities 

 than in country districts but the 

 volume is much less per capita. The 

 use of stone, brick, concrete and steel 

 in city buildings is increasing and 

 displacing wood; partly because some 

 other materials are more suitable, as 

 for instance in the modern skyscraper, 

 but largely because lumbermen have 

 not actively interested themselves in 

 keeping their products before consumers. 



