Over Producing or Under Selling

Bg Jacft Dionne

Take the Fir market, for instance.

These Fir manufacturers in the Northwest seem'to be running around in the same sort of circles that the southern pine forks were doing fifteen years ago.

- The_y- are selling plenty of lumber. All through the year you hear them report that the trouble is that too much lumber is being produ-ed. Tlie Pirie folks did the saine thing for half a generation.

But when the end of the year rolls round yo,u discover that they sold all their pro- duct. ft's that way every y-ear-. So it wasn't really too much lumber'at-a"t ;i-;: It was too much- competition, too little .good merchandising effort, too little "ottf,autt* in each other, and too little respect- for thlir own business. -That was the whole ;;;y. It used to be that way in the South.

The fact that things have changed in_the South is really due in very small measure to the Southern lumbermen themselves. It was the cuttinj out of tfre'miits, th" "nto- matic reduction in wild c-ompetition that resulted there-frolm, and the rafia-efimination of Southern Pine timber from sight, that brought Christianity to the tumber industry of the South.

^, , Th" other,.day l^saw. some prices that were quoted on timbers, delivered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, both on Southern Pine and Fir, sami items. The Fir prices delivered in Tulsa were $14 a thousand feet lower than the MILL PRICES of Sorittrern Fi*. f fr".'u heard directly- of still greater spreads of prices of late in Northern "o*pltiti* ierritory, between Southern Pine and Fii.

In ever_y case that I heard of Fir could have been sold for from $10 to $20 a thousand feet more than it actually IID selt for, and still get the busines".So yio- see, it isn't overproduction that makes the trouble. The Fir rien are simply cuttine the throats of one another,.jl* ": in-tho-se_good (?)-old days the Southern bit" -er-rsea to-ao; ana Just as in still further back days, the Northern Pine producers used to act. It just seems to be a lumber trait.

.The-mill price of Fir is TOO low. It is too low figured from any and every possible angle. rrt is too low primarily becalle the present pric-es cannot postiUty covei ihe cost 91,,T-Tll1:turinq Fir lumber from Fir tim6er at piesent timber pti""",'of"""ti"g "ori., seurng costs, and general cost of doing business.

And it is too low for the-very- simple reason that the Fir producers themselves sell it at that price, and that is all there is to-it.

D3n't let anyone tell you-that- it is the fault of the selling departments of the Fir manufacturers. Nothing of the kind. They uied to try and p-aqF tire buck the same way to the salesmen in Southern Pine regions, ind it nevei was irui. Never.

All the trouble that ever was in the Southern Pine business in the old days; all thc trouble there is in the Fir'business today; and all the trouble that will co-e io the Fir business in the future, can be traced witiout'the aid oi a business a"ii"ii"eiigrti uact to a single source-the executive departments of the Fir industry.

. Solving the-problem? Ah! There is a big and important question. It would require a book to handle it._ But more- vision, co--ope-ration, nierchandising, satesmat s*p$d more of the Golden Rule in business-are thi fundamentals.

.. There are signs of hope in the Northwest Still somewhat remote, but signs just the same.