8 BULLETIN" 1119^ U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



transportation, or both, inevitably rises, and with it the price of the 

 lumber delivered at the distant market. 



In this age of specialization Americans no longer build their homes 

 of hewn logs and whipsawed planks. They are dependent upon the 

 sawmills. If they use lumber, they must pay the prices asked. The 

 incomes of most people are very little in excess of their necessary 

 expenses. Hence even a slight rise in lumber prices results in a wide- 

 spread tendency to reduce per capita consumption, which operates to 

 decrease the annual cut. 



LUMBER PRICES INCREASED. 



The average value of lumber at the mill as reported in 1920 was 

 $38.42 per thousand. This is an increase of $8.21 per thousand, or 

 27 per cent in excess of the value reported in 1919 to the Bureau of 

 the Census. It is the highest average value and the greatest annual 

 increase ever recorded, although the extremely high prices were 

 maintained only a few months. Hand in hand with the persistent 

 decrease in lumber production went a persistent increase in valuation. 

 The value at the mill in 1920 was 247 per cent in excess of the mill 

 value as reported in 1899. In the 21 years since 1899 the value of 

 lumber went up at the rate of fully 5 per cent per average year. On 

 the percentage basis prices rose faster than the cut diminished . (Fig. 4 .) 



The value reported for 1920 by no means reveals the violent 

 upheaval in prices which occurred in that year, because it is an 

 average for the year, and shows neither the maximum attained nor 

 the subsequent swift decline of lumber prices. Here it will be of 

 interest to review briefly some of the conditions which drove prices 

 to the peak. Following the armistice in 1918 the lumber industry 

 was seriously hampered by conditions created by the war. The 

 logging camps, the mills, and the offices had contributed their quota 

 to the Army, often losing the services of those best qualified to run 

 the job. When the soldiers returned, many of them never regained 

 touch with the work they left. Labor troubles were widespread and 

 serious throughout 1919, and stocks ran low. Throughout the period 

 of demobilization transportation conditions were fairly chaotic, 

 punctuated by embargoes and embarrassed by frequent shortages 

 of cars. Throughout the winter of 1919-20 weather conditions in 

 the lumb/er woods were particularly unfavorable in the Central 

 States and in the South, the woods being so watersoaked as greatly 

 to hamper lumbering operations. 



The Northeast and the Central States had each cut 96 per cent 

 of their original areas of virgin timber. The Lakes States had cut 

 90 per cent, and the South was not far behind. The South was the 

 only lumbering region east of the Great Plains in which depletion 

 of the, timber stands had not gone so far that there was no reason- 

 able chance to increase production. And the South itself was 

 seriously handicapped because of the conditions indicated. Sixty- 

 one per cent of the total remaining saw timber is west of the Great 

 Plains, and the remainder in the East is no longer so distributed as 

 to serve its markets with the former ease. 



During the war domestic consumption of lumber was relatively 

 low because most forms of construction, including dwellings and 

 apartment houses, were classed as nonessential activity. Both on 

 the farms and in the cities a vast amount of building was deferred, 



