The Lumber Industry

manner. Lumber is but one of the products of the forests, but the facts regarding lumber will answer that question, and answer it in the negative. The remedies, however, are not only difficult to determine, but very much more difficult to procure and to apply.

including stumpage, of from five to ten dollars per thousand feet less than the average production costs of the modern plant equipped for proper utilization.

It is,a matter of *'orld rvide knowledge that nature bestowed her riches uoorr the United States rvitlr a lavish haud, and that these riches have beel used in an equally lavish manner. It is a duty that rve owe to ourselves and to posterity to pause and check up, so far as 11'e can, on our remaining stores of those splendid gifts, arrd on our method of utilizing them. It is our duty to see to it that we supply our needs rvith the least possible waste of those essential resources. There can at least be no question of the need of real conservation in our use of tl-re forest, and my survey of the lumber industry is made fronr that standpoint. That we are exhausting the supply very much more rapidly than u'e are renewing it is beyond the realm of debate. Timber is the only natural resourre, the supply of which is plainly visible. Therefore, there is no great degree of guess u'ork as to our stock on hand. It is also the onlv natural resource which naiure, if rrndisturbed, u'ill reproduce. If then the people of this country ever experience a timber shortage it rvill be clearly the fault of those u-ho have gone before. This generation must do its pait in warding off such a catastrophe, but it rvill require action on a large scale, far beyond anything yet proposed.

There has been, I believe, more loose thinking in connection rvith forest utilization and reforestation tlran on any other vital problem before the American people. A well known novelist, a sincere nature lover. rvhose books have entertained tlrousands of readers, recently wrote this:

"Every American has seen hay or rvheat fall before the scythe or the morver. That is the way the dense dark beautiful forests of Washington, Oregon and California are disappearing. To rvhat end? I declare I cannot see any end for such rvholesale destruction except to rnake a ferv men rich!"

This man clearly did not stop to reflect that product of those forests built thousands upon thousands of homes, hundreds of factories, and. was absolutely essential to the construction and maintenance of the raill1'ays, upon rvhich the prosperity of his adored West was dependent. He did not even remember that tlre paper upon rvhich his w'ritings were published came from these or similar forests. Above all, he did not understand that these forests g'ere cut to supply a real and urgent need. I cite this not as an isolated case, but onlv as alr example of the torre of thousandi of sinrilar utterances arrd editorials rvritten bv sincere. honest, but uuinformcd arr<l inrriracticable people. If the sanre irrdividuals iorrld have an X-ray viel'r' of our exlrausted oil pools they would probably feel that these pools were drained only to create enorlnous fortulles, or to afford jo1'riding facilities for irresponsible youngsters.

The people of this countr]' do not clesire, and certairrly rvill not clemand, the abandonment of the practical values of our forests to hold intact their natural beautl' for the <1elight of those u'tro might be privileged to enjoy it.

They are, horvever, cleeply coucerned in knorying u'hether or not lve are using the forests in an intellisetrt and conservative

Like other lines of manufacture, lumber goes through three stages, or processes. First, production; Second, distribution; and third, consumption. Before corrsidering the process of production I u'ant to call your attention to certain fundamentals wherein lumber differs from practically all industries. Our raw material in the log is so bulky, so heavy, and has so much rvaste, that it will not stand the cost of long transportation hauls. Consequently, the factory must be taken to the raw material, instead of the raw material to the factory. This situation demands inves'tment in a large s,\rpply of standing timber before incurring the expense of erecting a salv mill plant. As a matter of fact the raw material or timber investtneut is usually very much the greater of the trvo. This results in proportionately heavier capitalization entitled to earnings, heavier depletion and plant depreciation charges, and proportionately vastly heavier annual property taxes thau are imposed upon other industries. These conditions have a determining effect on the cost and on the rate of production.

There are probably thirty thousand saw rrrills in the United States, located in thirty different states. These range from the small portabte outfit, run by a gasoline tractor engirre purchasable on the installment plan, and not costing in all over two thousand dollars, to the huge modern saw mill producing a million feet per day, and costing, rvith its accessories, miltions of dollars. While these saw mills are scattered, it is nevertheiess true that our main stand of virgin forest supply in softwoods is now confined to t$'o areas. The Yellow Pine regions of the South, and the states of the far West, including California. Our supply of hardvuoods is better distributed. but the operations are chiefly in the l-ake States, Southerrl dppatachians, and the lower lying lands in the South. The products of all these regiorrs. however, compete in practically every teading market in the United States. The Panama Caual has opened the Atlantic Seaboard to our most remote timber stands on the Pacific Coast. Owing to these facts, and to the large number of operating units, the lumber industry is on a f iercell' competitive basis, and this conditiorr is intensified by the increasingly strong pressure of competing materials.

These portable mills to rvhich I refer consist of a circular sarv rig, and sometimes an edger, for squaring up the boards. They have no dry- kilns, planing mills, box factories, lath mills, or an1' other facilities for reasonable utilization. Lacking in facilities for storing lumber, and being restricted as to capital, their product tlrust go forward entirelf independent of suppl1' and demand. The tractor takes the outfit back from the railroads into a tract of young. cheap. second grorvth timbervvhich shoulrl be atlowed to rnature, and yielding luurber suital>le for . col.rllllon coustructiotr, boxes, crating, etc. Having but a smatl investment, little overhead, and payiug practically no taxes, the operation of a portable sarv mill represents the minimum of production cost. and the maximurn of u'aste. Yet, it is estimated that torlav nearl]' one-half of the production of Soirtherrr Pine is by mills cutiing less than tu'entl' thousatrd feet <laily, and at a cost'

I do not want to suggest the idea that there is no waste in the operations of .the larger saw mills. On the contrary there is considerable, much of which is preventable. Some of it is due to long established trade customs. In common commercial practice in this country, for example, neither odd widths nor odd lengths of lumber are used. It is estimatdd by competent authorities that admitting these odd sizes u'ould increase the marketable recovery of the log from twelve to eighteen percetrt. This matter has been the subject of more or less agitation for a number of years, but such is the inheient resistance of established commercial practice against any change that this large factor of conservation has not been shown any favor by the distributor or by the consumer. There is also manufacturing waste due both to faulty comnrercial practice and to poor merchandising methods. The sale and consumption of short lengths is an important c.ase in point. Recent surveys show clear-' ly that very much more lumber is consumed in lengths shorter than nine feet than is rnade in the best processes of manufacture. There has, however, been no real cooperation between producer and distributor lookins toward better utilization of this product' AJ a result, in times of u-eak markets, like the present, short pieces of lumber in increasing quantities find their rvay into the saw mill burner.

There is also a waste due entirely to economic conditions. There is in the process of saw milling an immense amount of ordinary saw mill offal which we cannot orofitablv convert into a salable article. Science is grappling with this problem, but progress is retarded by the fact that very lew lumber operators can aftord to support research laboratories. The united states Forest Products Laboratory is the chief aid in u'orking out this problem, and considering the magnitude of its field of investigation, and its meagre appropriations, its accomplishments have been 6ne indeed.

It is in logging, however, that even sreater $'aste occurs. The Bureau of Foristrv estimates that twenty-eight perceut of the iree is teft in the rvoods. Here again the barrier to better utilization is almost entirely economic. You will realize the force of this statenrellt rvhett I tell you that in 1924 ir the great Fir producing regions of the Northvyest only about thirty-seven percent of the lumber comprising largely the uoner srades, was sold at prices above the coit of-production. The result of this situation is apparent. The more of the coarser part of the tree that the manufacturer saves, lhe more he loses. The result is aud must be waste of timber.

But the greatest rvaste by the producer lies in cutting down trees tvhen there is no essential dehand or need for thq product. That this is being done today there can be no question. Thousands of acres of timber are being cut. and thc product divided bet$,een a surf eited market atrd the fire-pit. Like every other line of stable manufacture our lumbCr producing capacity is greatly in excess of any possible consumptive demand, both foreign and domestic, and is sure to continue so for some years to come. It will be contended that there is overproduction in practically all lines of industry. This

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