Plywood 
The foregoing discussion of future supply of raw 
material for the lumber industry applies also to the 
plywood industry, which is chiefly dependent on 
the lumber industry for its raw material. Plywood 
manufacture is relatively new here; the region’s 
annual plywood production expanded from 153 
million square feet (%-inch three-ply basis) in 
1925 to about 700 million in 1936.71. The installed 
capacity of the region’s plywood mills is distributed 
principally as follows: Puget Sound district, 49 
percent; Grays Harbor district, 30 percent; 
Columbia River district, 18 percent. Concentration 
of the industry at tidewater and on the Columbia 
River has been due principally to the ample supply 
of large high grade logs produced in the course of 
logging for sawmills and available on the open log 
markets there. The plywood industry has been in a 
position to command the market for these logs be- 
cause it can pay more for them than the sawmills. 
Owing to the rapid recent increase in plywood 
manufacture, some combing over of stands of 
large old growth to get veneer logs in advance of 
regular logging has been necessary in order to 
supplement the open-market supply. There is no 
immediate shortage of peeler-log trees in the 
woods. Whether or not the supply of high-grade 
veneer logs obtained in the ordinary course of log- 
ging for sawmills will prove adequate for the ply- 
wood industry in the future, or whether it will be 
necessary to continue the present practice of sup- 
plementing this supply by combing over old-growth 
stands, will depend on future trends in the demand 
for plywood, on progress in using logs of smaller 
diameter for plywood, and on the extent to which 
use of lower-grade logs for this purpose can be 
increased through taping of face stock. 
The quantity of high-grade veneer used in mak- 
ing panels is only a small part of the total material 
needed for panel manufacture. 
As yet plywood manufacturers have not owned 
much timberland, depending mainly on the open 
market or else on contractual agreements with 
loggers. ‘This industry is too big and promising to 
be allowed to decline because of a short-sighted 
policy towards providing raw material. Through 
~ 21 269 million board feet of logs is required to produce 700 
million square feet of plywood (%-inch three-ply basis). 
LZ 
selective logging and application of simple forestry 
measures a supply of logs suitable for the manu- 
facture of plywood may be provided indefinitely. 
In the Puget Sound district, the supply of raw 
material for this industry is adequate for the first 
decade. Puget Sound plants may be faced with 
a shortage of high-grade Douglas-fir veneer logs 
during the latter part of the decade 1943-52. 
Logs of this type can stand a high transportation 
charge, however, and may be brought in from the 
Columbia River, Willamette River, and Oregon 
coast districts; or small veneer plants may be set up 
in these other districts and veneer shipped from 
them to plywood mills on the Sound. 
In the Grays Harbor-Willapa Bay district the ply- 
wood industry will probably have enough raw 
material to operate for two decades, since a con- 
siderable part of the 20-years supply of Douglas-fir 
and Sitka spruce timber in availability class I will 
Even 
so, veneer logs are now being brought into Grays 
Harbor from Oregon coast and Willamette River 
points. If during the next decade or two the ply- 
wood industry uses an increased proportion of 
yield logs suitable for veneer manufacture. 
hemlock, the supply of material for plywood 
should last well into the third decade. 
In the Columbia River district there will un- 
doubtedly be a shortage of peeler logs by the third 
decade. However, this district has only one-fifth 
of the region’s installed plywood-mill capacity and 
is close enough to the Willamette River and 
Oregon coast districts to obtain its supply of 
veneer logs from them. 
Poles and Piling 
The cubic-foot production of poles and piling 
combined in 1930 contains far more Douglas-fir 
than “‘cedar,”’ since the use of Douglas-fir for piling 
far overshadows that of “‘cedar”’ for poles. Western 
redcedar composed more than 75 percent of the 
1930 pole production for the region, more than 90 
percent of that in western Washington, and less 
than 30 percent in western Oregon. Nearly as 
many “‘cedar”’ poles were imported into Washington 
from British Columbia as were produced locally; 
at the same time many “‘cedar”’ poles growing in 
Washington were wasted in the process of logging 
