THERE WXLL ALWAVS tsE LUMTtsEROOO

Twenty-five years ago, when THE CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT was starting business, it was the automatic assumption of the lumber industry generally that the South and West would follow naturally in the footsteps of the North and East; cut its timber, close its mills, and quit. What the builders would do after that for construction materials was any man's guess.

ft is true that there were living at that time lumber atld timber men who were gifted with foresight into the po*ibilities of timber regrowth, but they were few and far between, and were generally assumed to be crackpots rather that practical men. The great forests of other regions had been cut out in precedihg de,cades, the mills had fallen into decay or moved South or West, and the industry had fallen asleep. Why not the South and West? Tust as so many highly intelligent lumber manufacturers in the North and East had cut out and moved South, so wer€ many of the wisest mill men of the South cutting out and moving West. Nearly everyone took it for granted that one day the timber of the South would be gone, while the timber of the \\/est rnould last for many years and then it, in turn, would be gone. And with it the lumber industry.

_ Mr. F. V. Simpson, recently reviewing the history of luthber for 'a generation, quoted a sound authority on Southern lumber as saying in the early twenties: ,,The South is following the course of other regions, and the re_ maining supplies of virgin pine are only about one_fifth of the original stand. Within a single decade Southern pine production promises to exceed by little, if any, the needs of the South. In 15 years the South will become deoen_

This new timber crop is rising to mcturity on logged-oll