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



portation load, have afforded a curb on the upward movement of 

 lumber prices which did not exist in 1919. 



The experience of the last two years has been a sharp lesson to the 

 people of the United States. Lumber shortages and high prices have 

 seriously affected almost our entire population. The country is short 

 many hundred thousand homes and the cost of lumber fairly precludes 

 building by the average citizen. It has checked the development of 

 agricultural lands and needed improvements on farms. Many indus- 

 tries have been unable to secure their supplies of timber at any price. 

 The output of several entire industries has been reduced as much as 

 50 per cent. 



Doubtless these extreme conditions will be relieved in no great 

 length of time and more moderate prices will prevail. The outstand- 

 ing fact remains, however, that lumber price levels higher than those 

 existing before the war must be expected because of the depletion, 

 or approaching depletion, of our forest regions east of the Great 

 Plains. The scarcity of forest products of high quality cut from old 

 growth timber will not be readily or quickly overcome. The shortage 

 of certain materials like high-grade hardwoods is a permanent menace 

 to many of our most essential manufactures. Forest depletion is 

 going steadily on, unchecked. It must lead inevitably to rising price 

 levels under normal conditions. It will contribute to sudden and 

 excessive increases in lumber prices in any future transportation, 

 labor, or other crisis. 



TIMBER DEPLETION AND CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP. 



The concentration of timber ownership has not changed materially 

 since the exhaustive report made upon this subject by the Bureau of 

 Corporations in 1910. One-half of the privately owned timber in the 

 United States is held by approximately 250 large owners, the owner- 

 ship of the remaining timber being very widely distributed. The 

 tendency toward the acquisition and speculative holding of timber 

 beyond operating requirements has been checked and the present 

 tendency is toward manufacture in connection with large timber 

 holdings. At the same time the lumber industry, particularly in the 

 western States, is going through a partial reorganization into larger 

 operating and marketing groups. In this there is a tendency for 

 small mills to disappear and small timber holdings to be blocked into 

 larger ones adapted to extensive lumber manufacture. While there 

 are still a large number of individual timber owners and of sawmills 

 operating as separate units, the larger interests are acquiring a more 

 dominant place in lumber manufacture in the West. It is to be 

 expected that these large interests or groups will maintain, as time 

 goes on, a fairly constant supply of timber for their manufacturing 

 plants by acquiring smaller holdings. No information is at hand 



