364 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AlVIERICA'S FUTURE 



adequate and better quality housing, more goods 

 and services of all kinds, and more public facilities. 

 The production of goods and services to meet such 

 demands will certainly entail a large expansion of 

 industrial plant and equipment. Expenditures for 

 new construction and other elements of economic 

 growth having a direct influence upon demand for 

 timber products will be strongly affected. 



Raw Materials Input Will Increase 



As the economj^ expands, more raw materials 

 will be required. How much more is a pertinent 

 question because future demand for timber will 

 certainly bear some relationship to future demand 

 for raw materials in general. 



Raw materials are of three main types: Food 

 materials, energy materials, and physical-structure 

 materials. Fuelwood is the only timber product 

 that is an energy material. The physical-structure 

 materials ^° are those which provide the substance 

 of things we make and use. They include, for 

 example, all the metals except gold, all the non- 

 metallic-nonfuel minerals, all the fibers, and all 

 timber products except fuelwood. 



In order to observe input relationships and 

 trends for these broad classes of materials, a com- 

 mon input unit ^^ is used (table 201). With it. 



Table 201. — Inputs of physical-structure materials, 

 1900-1952 



8" The term "physical-structure materials," designating 

 all the nonfood-nonfuel raw materials, was first used by the 

 Bureau of the Census in its publication Baw Materials in 

 the United States Economy: 1900-1952, Washington, D. C. 

 1954. While the term may not be the best that might be 

 found (because of the tendency to associate such words 

 with building material only), there is precedent for re- 

 taining it. Various others so far considered as substitutes 

 for the Census Bureau's term appear no better. 



" Cubic feet of timber, tons of mineral ore, and bales of 

 cotton cannot be compared with each other nor added 

 together into a total. Converting the various units of 

 measure to a common conventional unit (such as tons or 

 cubic feet) would not suffice. Some materials have high 

 value per unit of quantity and others have low value. 

 Measurements of a heterogeneous collection of materials 

 that take no account of relative values have little signi- 

 ficance. 



The President's Materials Policy Commission and the 

 Bureau of the Census convert conventional units to a 

 common unit which does recognize differences in value. 

 This is the quantity of each material which could have 

 been bought for one dollar at its 1935-39 national average 

 price, what might be called a "constant-dollar quantity 

 unit." But instead of using such a cumbersome expres- 

 sion, the raw-materials input estimates available from 

 these agencies are here referred to simply in terms of 

 "units." 



The prices used in constructing the input unit estimates 

 were those prices applicable after the first major step in 

 production — timber products as logs and bolts at roadside 

 or minerals at the mine ready for shipment, for example. 

 Prices as of some later period would now be preferable, 

 but any reworking of input data is a job that only the 

 Census Bureau could undertake. 



The conversion of inputs from their conventional units 

 of measure to input units was done product by product to 

 minimize distortions that otherwise arise from changes in 

 the composition of any broad class of materials. Timber, 

 for example, was treated as four separate products — saw 







Input 







Input 





Total 



per 





Total 



per 



Year 



input 



million 

 GNP 



dollars ' 



Year 



input 



million 



GNP 



dollars ' 





Million 







Million 







units 



Units 





units 



Units 



1900.-- 



1, 979 





1927--- 



3,092 



183 



1901--- 



1,915 





1928..- 



3,327 



197 



1902.-- 



2, 375 





1929... 



3,455 



194 



1903.-- 



2,231 





1930.-- 



2,967 



184 



1904.-- 



2, 496 





1931-.- 



2,883 



191 



1905.-- 



2,453 





1932.-- 



2, 054 



160 



1906--- 



2, 635 





1933.-- 



2, 131 



173 



1907--- 



2, 427 





1934-.- 



1,834 



136 



1908.-- 



2, 425 





1935.-- 



2, 619 



172 



1909.-- 



2, 621 



255 



1936-.. 



2, 900 



171 



1910--- 



2, 760 



263 



1937.-- 



3,985 



218 



1911.-- 



2, 641 



251 



1938.-- 



3,037 



175 



1912--. 



2,767 



241 



1939--. 



3, 490 



186 



1913--- 



2, 636 



233 



1940.-- 



4,026 



197 



1914--- 



2,905 



259 



1941..- 



4,908 



208 



1915-.- 



2, 587 



234 



1942--. 



4, 993 



188 



1916--- 



2, 856 



241 



1943.-- 



4, 460 



151 



1917--- 



3,090 



247 



1944..- 



4,706 



147 



1918... 



2, 875 



218 



1945--- 



4, 173 



133 



1919--- 



2,678 



204 



1946..- 



4,379 



157 



1920.-- 



3, 242 



255 



1947-.. 



4,592 



166 



1921. - - 



2, 130 



191 



1948.-- 



5, 506 



190 



1922--- 



2, 611 



202 



1949... 



4, 944 



172 



1923--- 



3, 209 



221 



1950--- 



5, 174 



164 



1924--. 



3,069 



212 



1951..- 



5, 276 



157 



1925--- 



3, 331 



210 



1952-.. 



5, 933 



169 



1926-.- 



3,432 



207 









1 Input per million GNP dollars based on series (in 1953 

 constant dollars) contained in Potential Economic Growth 

 of the United States During the Next Decade. Joint Com- 

 mittee on the Economic Report, p. 35. Washington, 

 D. C. 1954. Estimates of GNP in 1953 dollars not 

 available for years prior to 1909. 



Source: Bureau of the Census. Raw Materials in the 

 United States Economy: 1900-1952, pp. 80-81. Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 1954. 



annual inputs of all ph3'sical-structure niaterials 

 can be compared with gross national product 

 (GNP). 



The relationship of physical-structure materials 

 input to gross national product has been fairly 

 consistent, but there has been some variation, 

 possiblj^due to timelags between input and output 

 or to errors in the input estimates (fig. 108). 

 Other influences that would account for variability 

 are economic depression and war. During times 

 of economic distress, it is quite pi-obable that 



logs for lumber, pulpwood, fuelwood, and "all other." 

 Materials imported for consumption as finished or semi- 

 finished goods were converted to equivalent quantities of 

 their constituent raw materials. 



The input data are taken from the revised series pub- 

 lished by the Bureau of the Census in Raw Materials in the 

 United States Economy: 1900-1952. Washington, D. C. 

 1954. 



