RESULTS OF OUR FOREST POLICY 355 



has been far less satisfactory from the point of view of the lumber- 

 men than from that of consumers.*" 



The lumber market has always been very unstable. Prices of most 

 woods have fluctuated widely and often. Occasional years of high 

 prices have been followed by longer periods of depression and low 

 prices. Taking the years between 1907 and 1915, for instance, the 

 average price of southern yellow pine shows a range of from $12.50 

 to $16.50, or 32 per cent of the lower rate. The average price of 

 Douglas fir in the same period ranged from $9.60 to $15.20 — a spread 

 of 58 per cent of the lower rate. Such an instability must be regarded 

 as an evil from every point of view.*^ 



THE LUMBER INDUSTRY AND TIMBER SPECULATION 



One of the vital weaknesses of the lumber manufacturing business 

 has been its close alliance with timber speculation. Twenty years ago 

 much of the timber in the West was worth very little, and purchasers 

 were able to buy stumpage at from three to twenty-five cents per 

 thousand feet. At that price it was good investment, for, with the 

 development of lumbering, the construction of transcontinental rail- 

 roads, expanding markets, and the influence of eastern conceptions 

 of timber values, enhancement of stumpage prices was very rapid — 

 particularly from 1900 to 1908. There was a rush of entrymen to 

 the public timber lands, not to settle them, but to acquire salable 

 claims; and millions of acres were patented from the government 

 every year. The agents of lumber companies and eastern investors 

 bought up claims and "blocked up" holdings while local speculators 

 assembled properties of a few thousand acres. Trading was active, 

 hundreds of men made fortunes by buying and selling stumpage, and 

 confidence in future timber values seemed unlimited. It was the common 

 feeling that prices would go up — as far as in eastern lumbering 

 regions. Within ten or fifteen years, the initial cost of government 

 timber was multiplied in subsequent transfers — ten, fifteen, or twenty 

 times, in some parts of the Northwest."*^ 



*o Proceedings, National Lumber Manufacturers' Association, Thirteenth An- 

 nual Meeting, 172 et seq. 



41 "Public and Economic Aspects of the Lumber Industry," 21-23; Am,. Lumber- 

 man, Jan. 1, 1916, 52: Forest Bui. 34, 43. 



♦2 "Public and Economic Aspects of the Lumber Industry," 12 et seq.: Am. 



