TIMBER DEPLETION, PRICES, EXPORTS, AND OWNERSHIP. 



13 



1914, it required 134 men on the payroll to maintain a full crew 

 of 100 men per day, while in July, 1919, 153 men were carried 

 to maintain the same sized crew. Many operators in the 

 Appalachian hardwood region say that they hardly know from 

 day to day whether or not their mills will run. Illustrations of 

 this character could be multiplied almost indefinitely for all 

 parts of the country, but those already given sufficiently indi- 

 cate the general situation. The unstable character of the lum- 

 ber industry has been in no small degree responsible for its 

 inability to secure and hold a desirable class of labor, particu- 

 larly in logging. 



Dependence upon the South and the Northwest for timber 

 lias placed a greater burden upon the railroads of the country 

 than they could carry under the disorganization following the 

 war. The car shortage is estimated by various authorities at 

 from 200,000 up. It is reported from the southern hardwood 

 territory that only 60 to 65 per cent of the cars required for 

 logs and lumber can be obtained. The secretary of the Cali- 

 fornia Sugar & White Pine Co., a sales organization which 

 served 35 mills in 1919, reports materially curtailed shipments 

 in September, October, and November, due to a car shortage of 

 G5 per cent. While the railroads do not altogether agree as to 

 the extent of the shortage, it is certain that difficulties in secur- 

 ing cars, freight congestion, and embargoes have all served to 

 accentuate difficulties in securing lumber supplies. Lumber, as 

 one of the most bulky commodities, is always one of the first to 

 suffer in case of freight congestion. 



A disorganized industry, short stocks, abnormal demands, 

 and reduced production have all contributed to high prices for 

 lumber. Even though it had still been possible to produce 

 lumber in quantity in each of the regions from which it has 

 been so largely depleted New England, New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, the Lake States, and the Southern Appalachians lumber 

 prices would still have risen in response to other conditions 

 which have grown out of the war. Price increases for other 

 commodities are significant in this connection. As shown by 

 Hie Department of Labor statistics, the prices for all commodi- 

 ties had, considering the year 1890 as 100 per cent, risen to 



250 per cent in January, 1919, and to 293 per cent in December, 

 1919, with an average for the year of 263 per cent. Using 1913 

 as 100 per cent, prices for January, 1919, had risen to 203 per 

 cent, and in December, 1919, to 238 per cent. Regardless of 

 every other conceivable condition, a very substantial rise in 

 lumber prices would have been inevitable from such causes as 

 the enormous credit expansion growing out of the war and the 

 accompanying currency inflation, causes which are responsible 

 for large price increases in all other commodities. It is un- 

 necessary to dwell upon these general causes, but they must 

 be taken fully into account in any attempt to analyze the 

 extent to which timber depletion is responsible for price in- 

 creases. 



Abnormal conditions affecting forest products have not ob- 

 tained alone in the case of the lumber industry. One further 

 example, that of newsprint, will be given. Because of war re- 

 quirements, newsprint paper production suffered less than 

 lumber. The industry was less disorganized and the response 

 to Increased demand was much more prompt. The Federal 

 Trade Commission reports that newsprint production during 

 the fiscal year 1919 exceeded that of 1918 by 8 per cent. Pre- 

 war production had reached 1,313,284 tons in 1914. During the 

 20-year period preceding the war the demand for newsprint 

 had increased practically without a break by 200 per cent. Inci- 

 dental to the increase in demand which might have been ex- 

 pected normally there grew out of reconstruction the most 

 extensive use of advertising which the United States or possibly 

 any country has ever seen. Within the year national advertis- 

 ing increased greatly. Advertising as a whole in 1919, as shown 

 by nearly 100 newspapers in a little less than 20 of our largest 

 cities, increased over that of 1918 by approximately 40 per cent. 

 During the first two or three months of 1920 the amount of 

 advertising exceeded that for a similar period in 1918 by some- 

 thing over 50 per cent. This demand created, in spite of the 

 restriction of reading matter by the average newspaper, an 

 abnormal demand for paper and was a powerful factor in the 

 unprecedented rise in newsprint prices which has already been 

 discussed. 



STEADY PROGRESS OF FOREST DEPLETION. 



FOREST DEPLETION AND MIGRATION OF THE 

 LUMBER INDUSTRY. 



Each successive chapter in the history of the lumber industry 

 in tha United States has been a story of depletion and migra- 

 tion. In softwoods it is a history of regional industries, each 

 developing in its turn, dominating the consuming markets of 

 the country, and declining at last so far as to be unable to meet 

 the local requirements of its region. Each has had the same 

 essential features of beginning, rise, and fall from light culling 

 operations to clean cutting of good timber and poor alike and 

 of the shifting of cut from the more to the less desirable species. 

 The story of each region will be taken up in detail, but the main 

 outlines should first be made clear. 



In New England lumbering early became a leading industry, 

 supporting local needs, furnishing the basis for the early ship- 

 building industry, and providing exports. The industry ex- 

 panded very slowly, and owing to the shifting of the cut from 

 one section to another, from one species to another, and finally 

 from virgin stands to second growth, partly on deserted farm 

 lands, production did not reach the maximum until as late as 

 1907. Since then it has been falling rapidly. 



New York followed New England as the center of softwood 

 lumber producton and was the leading lumber State in the 

 country in 1850, although the greatest volume production was 

 reached from 10 to 20 years earlier. Pennsylvania followed 

 New York, and led all the States in 1860, but has now declined 



until one city district consumes more than the total lumber cut 

 of the State. 



White-pine operations in the Lake States began with a sin- 

 gle sawmill in 1832 ; eastern shipments were being made three 

 or four years later ; and the culmination was reached in 1892 

 with a cut of nearly 9 billion feet. Dreary wastes, dismantled 

 sawmills, deserted towns, and an insignificant pine output of 

 a single billion feet in 1918 are depressing reminders of the 

 day when Lake States lumber supplied the markets of the 

 country from the Rockies to the Atlantic Ocean and from the 

 Canadian boundary literally to the Gulf. 



The great development of the southern industry began in the 

 seventies and increased rapidly to what was probably the 

 maximum, about 16 billion feet, in 1909. In its turn, southern 

 pine dominated the markets little if any less completely than 

 white pine ; but the South is following the course of other 

 regions, and the remaining supplies of virgin pine are only 

 about one-fifth of the original stand. Within a single decade 

 southern pine production promises to exceed by little, if any, 

 the needs of the South. 



A great start has been made in the last chapter of the history 

 of virgin softwood stands. Since 1894 Pacific coast and Rocky 

 Mountain timber has been forcing its way increasingly into 

 the middle western and eastern markets. Within the year it 

 has dominated those of the Lake States and has even entered 

 in appreciable quantities those of the South itself. To the West 

 only, of all our heritage of magnificent softwood forests, can 



