54 



TIMBER DEPLETION, PRICES, EXPORTS, AND OWNERSHIP. 



Fio. 20. 



Several of the largest companies operating both mills and 

 retail yards, for example, sought to stabilize prices on their 

 own responsibility, and their efforts unquestionably had a far- 

 reaching effect In breaking the rising prices and bringing about 

 a slight decline, ranging from $1 to $10 per thousand, according 

 to grade. Many lumbermen admit that prices went so high that 

 demand was automatically checked. There is ample evidence 

 throughout the Middle West that lumber prices reached a point 

 which aroused public indignation in many communities, and 

 that this feeling, combined with a widely advertised announce- 

 ment of one of the largest producing and distributing com- 

 panies that it proposed to stabilize prices on the basis of its 



January list, resulted in a sharp falling off in buying. An 

 extract from the announcement issued by this company late in 

 February reads as follows : 



The Interests comprising the group have come to recognize that this 

 condition of the lumber market Is Injurious to the public and to the 

 industry generally ; that the uncertainty even more than the price level 

 is demoralizing and results In enhanced cost of building and discour- 

 ages construction, and that unless something is done to check the 

 present tendency toward further and frequent and irregular advances 

 which have no relation to costs of production the situation will become 

 still more deplorable. 



The intent of the company to stabilize prices was construed 

 by the public and the press as a cut in prices, and buyers quite 



