Forest Harvegt for New Year Tied to Overseas Combat

(Continued of the total cut, actually substantially more, for this purpose alone, than the entire industry produced for all purposes in 1932.

Boxing, crating and shipping lumber is the largest item, but other uses are on the increase, too. Some are large like the trucks and trailers, others small, but they all add up. In1942, we produced three times the wooden ships that our yards turned out in 1855, peak year of sailing ship construction. Tonnage was not as great, because of the large number of small combat craft, but in 194.3, and probably also in 1944; this use of wood will be greater. Half the cellulose for our smokeless powder now comes from trees. I cite these instances, not because they are comparable to lumber in volume, but as indicative of the fact that the war will still need wood for a wide range of uses.

The impact of war has brought lumber production to its highest peaks since l9D, and that despite dangerously serious problems of manpower. More than 36 billion board feet was produced in 1942, yet about one-fourth fewer men were employed in our sawm,ills and in the woods than in l9D, when substantially the same amount of lumber, was cut.

Despite heroic efforts of operators and employees alike, production has sagged somewhat in 1943. The result has been that demand has out-stripped production. This is reflected in further declines of lumber stocks to a new low. By January, 1944, mill inventories of lumber will have dropped to little more than 4,500 million board feet, two billion less than in 1943. At the beginning of. I9D, it wilt be recalled that mill lumber stocks exceeded 11,700 million board feet.

So it may readily be seen that 1944 will be nip and tuck. When our armies in action overseas reach millions, we may expect demands .for lumber and timber products to increase, rather than decrease. Lumber dealers generally may expect no relief in lumber supply next year, unless our enemies collapse in a sudden and unforeseen debacle. There is no use pretending otherwise. Dealers have no choice but to continue in 1944 as they have in 1942 and. 1943, using every available resource to hold their place in business against the time when, once again, they may sell lumber and building material freely. Most dealers from Page 6) have given a phenomenal exhibition of business resourcefulness under these difficult circumstances.

For those who are able to bridge the gap, rewards promise to be great. Little or ordinary private construction has gone on for two years-how much longer, we can only guess, though-the Office of Civilian Supply, WPB, has predicted a substantial recovery of ordinary building within six months-but, because of that very,fact, we are approaching possibly the heaviest residential construction program yet undertaken.

We will end the war with the most pressing housing shortage in history. This deficiency is not entirely warborn. Even from l9?.O to 1930, when x'e built an averag'e of 700,000 new homes a year, we scarcely kept pace with current needs. But, from 1930 to 1940, we fell behind. During those ten years, we built 2,700,0N new dwellings, yet we ended the decade with d500,000 more non-farm families than we had in 1930. Ilere was a clear deficiency of l,800,000 family units, taking no account whatever of losses by destruction or depreciation, or of farm needs, always one of our ch,ief markets.

This trend has been accelerated since then. In 1940, we had 200,000 more marriages than in 1939. The 1941 birthrate was 14 per cent higher than in 1933. In 1942,3,000,000 babies were born, an all-time record in this country.

Aside from emergency war housing-specialized in location and temporary in character-virtually nothing has olfset even the deficiency bequeathed us by the depression years.

The needs accumulated then and being added to now are the basis for the prediction that we will be building a million new homes a year for 10 years, starting soon after hostilities cease. This homebuilding program alone, greater than our greatest, would consume 1,339,000,000 man-hours on the site, per year. To produce the needed lumber would require 279,595,W man-hours. To manufacture other materials for house construction, 1,677,57U,ffi more manhours will probably be required. This adds up to employment of possibly e000,000 men for 10 years for new home construction alone. The construction industry, beyond doubt, will be the first and perhaps the largest single factor in the battle for post-war employment.

These estimates do not touch the improvement market. Competent men foresee a home-and-farm improvement program totaling some six billion dollars. I would hesitate to compute how much commercial construction will follow the war, but I dare say almost any lumber dealer or contractor may profitably spend time today planning store improvements and repairs for his fellow merchants, whether in a large city or small town.

Lumber will start rolling to retail yards the instant the WPB order releasing stocks to civilians is signed in Washington. WPB will do that when the war needs permit and not sooner. Nor do we wish it sooner however much we want to provide for "old customer."

Our sawmills and other wood-working plants have no serious problems of retooling. The cancellation of war contracts should cause little more than momentary disruption, for we can swing with scarcely a break to the task of reducing the files of unfilled orders that have been gathering dust.

It is time to get construction projects translated from vague hopes to definite plans now. Dealers and contractors whose customers have their final blueprints ready, their estimates completed, and their financial arrangements well considered will be the dealers and contractors who will feel the recovery first, and who will be able to take fullest advantage of a new and expanding market.

I would include with this a thorough understanding of new materials and new ideas in design. Much that has been written on the post war "dream house" has been pure fantasy. While those in the industry are not deluded by pipedreams, we must recognize that, to the public, most of the improvements in materials and methods developed during the war years will seem new. To the home builder, they will be interesting and even exciting. That, too, is a psychological tool in our hands. 'We can use it if we keep ourselves well informed of the developments in our own industry, and in close touch witi sources of supply.

It is easy, perhaps natural, for lumber dealers to conclude that manufacturers are not much concerned with their difficult plight. It may seem so. But it is not so.

Here again, we must face facts. Forest industries, large in total, are in the main small individually. Our industry is not dominated by a Detroit or a Hollywood or a Pittsburgh, as are the automobile, motion picture and steel industries. One of the largest producers-perhaps the largest-of softwood lumber produced only about three per cent of the national total in 1942. The mounting pressure of war production has weighed heavily, indeed, upon the thousands of small sawmill units that normally supply the construction industry.

Our manufacturers have not had much time to talk about the post-war, but it is in their minds and in their plans. Fortunately, their plans need not consider how they may switch from war to peace. The process will entail no severe problems of mechanics and plant reconversion. It will take place, when the time comes, mostly in mill or sales offices, when the files for WPB and OPA and WMC and USES are moved to the "permanent" records, and the files for Jones & Company, Lumber Merchants, are shifted back to the "current" drawer. That can be done quickly, and it will be.

Locdias rhe ptrrood on c trucL. Tinbera, l0 x l0 r""i1'J"*tt"ii"" long, were lcrid on &e botton ol the trucL due to the exkc-long overbcmg of the aheete.

Receives Shipment of Extra-Long Plywood

The largest sheets of plywood ever shipped into Los Angeles arrived a few weeks ago at the E. K. Wood Lumber Co. These Resnprest Douglas fir exterior plywood sheets were 36 feet long, 6 feet wid,e, /s inches thick, and 5-ply construction. These long pieces were made by using five regular sheets of plywood with scarf joints and joined together with phenolic resin glue bond.

The shipment came from the M and M Wood Working Co. of Portland, Ore., included 150 pieces, and totaled 32,400 board feet. Due to their length they had to be loaded in an end-door automobile freight car.

To load them on trucks, it was necessary to use 10 x 10 inch by 36 feet timbers on the bottom of the truck owing to the length of the pieces.

They were for the Wilson Co. at Wilmington for use in aircraft rescue boats.

Rcry Lcrson in Army

Ray Larson of the Portland office of Wendling-Nathan Co., and for several years at the San Francisco office, will report at Camp Lewis January 5 for Army service.

Dcpcntrnent E. L $rood Lunbcr Co. ct Ior Angclc*

M and M Wood Working Co. has shipped large quantities of this extra long Douglas fir plywood to shipyards all over the country. They have also made them in mahogany.

L A. To Get 1000 New Housing Units

Washington, Dec. 21.=-Construction of 1000 privately financed family dwelling units for war workers in the Los Angeles area was approved today by the NHA.

Wishing Our Friends

Denics Request for Increase in Ceiling Priceg for all Southern Pine Lumber

Washington, D, C., Dec. 16.An industry request for an immediate increase of $5 per 1,000 board feet in ceiling prices for all Southern pine lumber was denied by the Office of Price Administration today.

The request for the increase was presented to OPA through the Southern pine fndustry Advisory Committee, which stated such a rise in prices was necessary because of increased costs. The Committee asked OPA for the increase for an interim period pending completion of a cost study which the Comrnittee said would justify the price advance requested.

Denying the request, OPA said:

"It is OPA,policy to grant price increases only in situations where a study of production costs clearly indicatcs that producers in a given industry cannot continue operations without undue hardship.

"The Southern pine industry, as in previous price relief requests, must supply OPA with complete production cost figures before the price agency can consider any change in ceiling prices."

The Industry Advisory Committee said that to compile and submit complete cost information to OPA would require "several months."

"No action with regard to increasing Southern pine ceilings will be taken until the cost study, when supplied to OPA, has been carefully analyzed, by price department officials," the price agency added. "The industry has been inforrried that no action affecting Southern pine ceiling prices generally can be expected. Should the findings disclosed by the cost study indicate tlrat some relief will be necessary, the matter of possible action will then be considered."

Southern pine production costs were analyzed by OPA only a short time ago-in June and July of this year-and as a result of the analysis ceiling prices were raised an average of $3.20 per 1,000 board feet.

The net sales realization on Southern pine lumber sold in 1941 was $32.95 per 1,000 board feet. (Net sales realization is net sales divided by footage of lumber actually sold.) In 1942 the net sales realization on Southern pine was $36.52 per 1,000 board feet. This year, it is estimated the net sales realization will be $39.72 per 1,000 board feet, or an increase of 20 per cent over 1941. ITTOM$AI,I

Wholescle

MACHINES NOT HAYE THIS REPTA(ED MAN

The hunber industry neds skilled men In the woods, as in rnill cmd lcctory, eyery iob is a vital link in the chain oI production"

*PAI'L BI'NYAN'S" PNODUgfS

Solt Polrdcrosa cmd Sugcr Plne

TUMBEN MOI'I.DING P[.Y$'OOD I'ENEIIAN BU![D SI.ATS

*crsrEBED uErGEB WEgfESlt PntE tESOCttilOr DCI@EB WOOD FCD Vacnf,lr8 r88[t.

,"f,DExr".

River

Ior the Deqler Trade o

A New Year Suggestion in Economics

If you are a married man and absolutely must drink' start a saloon in your own home, and begin to build up a nice fortune that you can retire on when you are old. Be the only customer, and you won't have to buy a licenseGive your wife enough money to buy a gallon of liquor. Every time you feel like buying a drink, buy it from her, and pay her what you would pay the cocktail bar you stop in so often. And pay according to the size of the drink, remembering that the liquor in a cocktail bar drink is mighty small. When the first gallon is gone your wife will have enough money in her saloon till to buy another gallon, and leave her eight or ten bucks over, which she can put away. If you live for ten years and do all your drinking at home in that fashion and finally die of the tremens as you are trying so hard now to do, she will have enough money in her saloon budget to give you a decent burial, bring up your children, give them an education, and still have enough left over to enable her to marrlt some decent guy and forget*all about you.

Prool ol DrunkennesE

The lawyer defending the man charged with drunkenness said:

"You know, officer, it is not always easy to be certain that a man is drunk. You say you found him down on his hands and knees in the middle of the road, but that does not prove for certain that he was drunk, now does it?"

The officer said: "No sir, it doesn't; but when you find him trying to roll up that white line down the center of the pavement, I get pretty well convinced that he's a bit on the drunk side."

M"il;;r*

He was teaching her arithmetic, He said that was his mission,

He kissed her once, he kissed her twice, And said "Now, that's addition."

He kissed her, and she kissed hirm, In silent satisfaction,

Then she took all the kisses bac\

And said "Now that's subtraction."

Then she kissed him and he kissed her, Without nnrch hesitation;

Then both looked up and smiling said"Now that's multiPlication."

Then dad appeared upon the scene, ' And made a quick decision,

IIe kicked the lad three blocks awayAnd said "That's long division."

No Bush

The sweet young thing grabbed a taxi down town the other day, and said to the driver: "To the maternity hospial, but don't rush. I only work there."

Their Bcrttle Cry's

Yipee ! Soldiers always yell when closing in for handto*hand conflict. And make no mistake about it.It relieves tension. We asked a Marine Eergeant who was in several Pacific engagements, what the men usually yell' and he told us:

"A lot of men just shout simple things like 'Let's get'em boys,' or'here we come,' or 'one side, Tojol' One college professor always yelled 'I shall now dissect you, species Tok5ro.' A former detective story writer shouted: 'Prepare to become a cadaver.' An ex-dentist cried: 'I shall open you wider, please.' And a former actor yelled: 'Here comes the curtain, Jap."'-Parade.

Thcrt Post*ript

Tom Drier tells about a pair of doting parents whose young son in first year college rprote them ttrat he had decided to quit school, marry the girl he was crazy about, and get a job. The father replied:

"Dear Son: Your Mother and I have been indeed surprised to learn of your decision to get married at once. \l[/e do not know your girl but we will have no objections if you can feel certain that she is as fine a woman as your mother. Will she be as faithful and devoted to her husband as your mother is to me? Will she be as loving and tender to her children as is your mother? If these questions can be answered favorably, then you will make no mistake. Affectionately Yours, Dad."

(Postscript) "Your Mother has just left the room. Don't be a damn fool."

Domestic *J"J in Cookins

Give me a spoan of oleo, Ma, And the sodium alkali, For I'm going to bake a pie, Ma, I'm going to bake a pie.

F'or Dad will be hungry and tired, Ma, His tissues will decompose, So give me a grain of phosphate, Ma, And the carbon and cellulose. Now give me a hunk of casein, Ma, To shorten the termic fat, And give me the oxygen bottle, Ma, And look at the thermostat. And if the electric oven is cold, Just turn it on half an ohm, I want to have supper ready, Ma, As soon as my O:U:oT"r home.

E:<trc:

The shortage of newsprint is a popular subject these days of thin newspapers. A newsboy rushed out on the street the other day yelling-"Extra! Extra!" A business man stopped him and asked: "Extra what?" The newsboy said: "Extra thin."