14 EOEEST PBESEKYATION AXD NATIONAL PEOSPEETTY. 



and obtain annual reports from them, covering the three essential 

 points, viz, the amount produced, the amount sent forward to the 

 consumer, and the amount of stock on hand when annual inventories 

 are taken. 



* * * The steady growth of all lumber associations having for their 

 object systematic gathering and compiling of figures is the best 

 proof of the importance of statistics. When all manufacturers real- 

 ize their bearing on the individual operation, and on the group of 

 mills, and on the combined whole, some broad association now 

 organized, or yet to be born, covering the entire industry, will be able 

 to give what every producer is waiting for — correct statistics relative 

 to production, consumption, and visible supply, which are the three 

 factors governing values. 



DANGER CONFRONTING PACKERS, SHIPPERS, AND THE COOPER- 

 AGE INDUSTRY. 



M. C. MOOSE, 

 Secretary National Slack Cooperage Manufacturers' Association. 



I come before you as a delegate representing the National Slack 

 Cooperage Manufacturers' Association and the Beer Stock Manufac- 

 turers' Association of the United States, both of which organizations 

 represent vast capital invested and an enormous consumption yearly 

 of the best hardwood timber. I am also in close connection with the 

 Tight Barrel Stave Manufacturers' Association, the Eastern Cigar- 

 Box Manufacturers' Association, and other associations having to do 

 with the manufacture of package material. 



* * * When we consider that a wooden box is about the most 

 familiar and frequently seen object on the face of the civilized earth, 

 we can begin to appreciate the figure cut by the wooden-box industry 

 alone, in lumber consumption. 



* * * When we stop to think how much flour, apples, sugar, meat, 

 fish, truck, salt, cement, lime, whisky, beer, oil, molasses, etc., are 

 produced in the United States, and how largely they are dependent 

 upon the barrel as a package, we begin to see what the consumption 

 of timber — hardwood mainly — mounts up to for barrel packages 

 alone. The butter-tub trade is also an extensive one, and takes a 

 large amount of a very high class of hardwood timber. A great 

 annual production of woodenware in the shape of tubs, pails, firkins, 

 etc., comes in to swell the aggregate in the use of timber by the 

 package-making trade. 



* * * The industries which I represent must have timber. They 

 must have a very great amount of it. They must have it steadily 

 available on a strictly commercial basis. Now, what can the princi- 



