6 Department Circular 112, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 



of the remaining timber to the average consumer is steadily decreasing. 

 The situation which confronts us now will be different only in degree 

 if we allow the western forests also to be exhausted and are com- 

 pelled to import most of our lumber from Siberia or South America. 



TIMBER DEPLETION AND LUMBER PRICES. 



The great leveler of lumber prices in our large markets has been 

 competition between groups of sawmills in different timbered regions. 

 As the most accessible forests in the region nearest to each important 

 market have been cut out, prices have advanced, as a broad rule, 

 only far enough to permit a flow of lumber from the most available 

 timber in the next region in point of distance. The price level thus 

 established has held in a broad way until further depletion in the 

 nearer regions has forced an upward movement sufficient to bring 

 in still more distant supplies of timber. 



The wholesale prices on upper grades of softwood lumber in New 

 York prior to 1865 were from $20 to $25 per thousand feet. The sup- 

 ply then came from mills in the same State or in Pennsylvania. A level 

 of from $35 to $45 marked a period of 30 years or more prior to 1917 

 when most of the lumber came from the Lake States or the South. 

 The abnormal conditions of 1919 initiated a new level of about $130 

 per thousand feet, with a considerable part of the material coming 

 from the Pacific coast. The building grades of pine lumber cut near 

 the Great Lakes retailed in the Middle West at $15 to $20 per 

 thousand feet prior to 1900. Timber depletion in the Lake States 

 forced these prices up to a level of $25 to $35 per thousand feet, 

 when southern pine took over the market. And to-day the shortage 

 of southern pine together with other factors has advanced prices to 

 $80 or $85 per thousand feet, and western timber is becoming the 

 staple of the region. 



The depletion of timber has by no means been the sole cause of 

 the recent wave of excessive lumber prices. Lumber production 

 during the war was much less than normal owing to shortages of labor 

 and equipment and embargoes on transportation, and a considerable 

 part of the cut was taken by the Government for war purposes. At 

 the same time the usual construction of dwellings and industrial 

 structures and the use of lumber in many manufacturing industries 

 was curtailed. Following the war these pent-up demands were re- 

 leased. They caught the lumber industry not only with stocks short 

 and broken from war conditions but unable, on account of labor diffi- 

 culties, lack of freight cars, and bad weather in important producing 

 regions, to respond rapidly with increased production. The general 

 causes affecting prices of most commodities, such as the expansion 

 of credit accompanied by currency inflation and the wave of specu- 



