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The condition in which the lumber industry finds itself as this new year opens is as astonishing and astounding as what has suddenly happened to the war situation in Europe.

The fact is that what happened to our war plans is exactly what has happened to lumber. Four months ago everyone was guessing the date-always before Christmas, 1944-when Germany would get out of the war. Plans were being made in accordance with the belief that the European end of the great war was practically over.

We heard and read of scores of war plants closing or preparing to close; of hundreds and hundreds of war.plants that were rushing their studies of reconversion to peacetime production, instead of guns, and shot, and shell. And in the lumber industry we expected to see a great change take place in regard to lumber supply. By Christmas we thought we would see much lumber turning into civilian channels, restrictions and regulations lifted or eased. The whole country was getting ready for the end of the European war.

And suddenly-everything changed. No need to go into the story. It is biting deep into your consciousness as you read these lines. No one knows when the European war will end. And all the war plants that were closed, closing, or contemplating closing, suddenly took on renewed life, and the cry for more men to operate them rose to the ver/ skies. All of a sudden we heard a call for more men. more guns, more ammunition, more everything that is needed to fight a war that suddenly grew bigger than anyone, apparently, had estimated.

And lumber, instead of turning toward more and more civilian channels, was suddenly grabbed by the slack of the pants and the nap of the neck and cast headforemost into the very maw of the great god of war. We thought we were in the war up to our ears even before this happened. We're over our heads right now. Everyone in authority who knows what they are talking about tells us that there is a far greater need for lumber now than there ever was during the past year, that the need seems to exceed the possible production, and that the war effort wants everything the sawmills can turn out, and wants it quickly, furiously. It isn't just a need, now; it's a wild demand.

You, Mister Lumber Dealer, get the picture as it really is, and don't let anyone soft-soap you into believing it is anything easier. Now, and for months to come, lumber is going to be scarcer, harder to get, and more strictly regulated in its use than ever before in history. Lumberless lumber yards are going to be the fashion for some time to come. There will be some variation in the famine, depending on locality, but generally speaking the above statements are Gospel.

This, of course, will come as a great disappointment to the lumber dealers generally who have been looking forward so eagerly to the day when there will be lumber in