The Trend of Forest Industries in the ,Pacific Northwest

(Continued from Page 16) almost daily, analysis of its own operations as to production,. business placed, shipments and stocks; and for the prompt dissemination of such information in order that each manufacturer can more effectively adjust his own business to the situation in the industiy at. large and the trend of its markets.

The lumber industry, like the railroads, is realizing the necessity for a suslained efiort tb improve the efficiency of its operations, to avicid waste iir the utilization of its raw mateiial, and to develop new products or more refined products which make for economy in the use of the,tree and, on the other hand, serve the varied needs of present-day consumptioh.

The market for the woods of the Northwest is becoming more and more specialized and requires a more and more intensive selection of the different materials found in our forests to fit the needs of particular customers.

Industrial research is today one of our prime necessities. The forests of the Northwest contain an astonishing variety of woods adapted to an enormous range of difierent uses. Douglas fir is probably adapted to more different requirementl and has i wider range of specific. uses than any other wood known to man. We may obtain from it by careful selection the highest grade of structural beams, close grained and dense in texture and a competitor with steel ior the heavy burdens of moderir construction. We may obtain from it clear finish lumber adapted to factory uses, lumber adapted to car building, vertical grain stock offering the maximum resistance to wear as flooring; as well as thE construction materials adapted to every-day use. And so on with our spruce, our western hemlock and our Western Red Cedar-all woods having certain special qualities and adaptabilities, but requiring for their more effective marketing a closer and closer selection of material and more and more exacting methods of manufacture or refinement to fit particular uses.

Running with these developments-and here the analogy with the railroads is most direct-the lumber industry realizes that its success lies, not merely in putting a good product on the market but in selling the consumer on the specific quality and service which he desires. We can not achieve success simply by controlling a large supply of raw material. 'We can not merchandise our products simply by finding the competitive price at which a particular lot of boards will move. 'We must win and hold our trade by following our products through to the ultimate use which they render and the economic need which they satisfy or fail to satisfy. Our aim must be to create and preserve an established use of West Coast woods, in the changing picture of national consumption, by constantly testing the quality and service of our wares through the consumer's eyes. As one Tacoma manufacturer has put it, the lumber industrv must "learn to think from the consumer back to the stuinp.'

In these various respects it may be said that the lumber industry is entering a new era. A phase of it which may be of special interest on this occasion is that dealing with the diversification of the forest products of the Northwest and the constantly closer recovery and use of the raw material with which, this region was so abundantly endowed. This is of moment not only to the lumber business. It has an important bearing upon the industrial future of the Northwest-as to its railroad traffic, its population, its consumption of all commodities, and its general economic progress.

I doubt if many of those here realize the number and diversity of the things which are made out of wood on the northern Pacific Coast, or the ways and means which have been devised to save the odds and ends and to put different parts"of the tree into some article of commerciai *alue. We have brought together a little exhibit for your iirspection. It is far from complete; but will tell something of the effort to find a use-not for everything but the squeal, like the Chicago pork packers, but for everything except thq whisper of the tall firs.

The lumber industry of the Northwest has a reputation for wasteful use of its natural resources. This is smiU wonder when people traverse the slashings around our logging camps or contemplate the waste burners commohly found at our sawmills. But to a large degree it has not been an economic waste. It results from the sheer inabilitv of the logger or manufacturer to find a market for a po-rtion of the raw material which he handles. It has occurred in the operations of the lumber industry in every portion of the United States during the earlier period of developing markets and adjusting manufacturing processes to what the markets would take. It has been greatly accentuated in the Northwest by our great distances from the-more -pogulogs consuming regions and the correspondingly high freight rates which have debarred much low grade lumber from economic utilization.

Adequate use of the raw forest grown material in the Northwest is still one of our major problems. It is a problem of the region no less than of the forest industries themselves, because the entire region will share in the economic benefits from its solution. A few facts mav be of interest in showing the headway that has been made, both in the closer use of raw material and in its refinement or diversified manufacture here at the source of supply. They are indicators of progress in obtaining for the Northwest the full economic advantage of its forest resources.

One of the most significant is the rapid growth of the pulp and paper industry on the northern Pacific Coast. The Bureau of the Census for Washington reported 25 paper, wood pulp and other wood fiber manufacturing establishments in this state inI9Z7, with an annual production valued at $29,000,000. Last year the payroll of this industry in Washington exceeded five and one-half million dollars, having nearly doubled since 1924. Western Oregon has witnessed a somewhat similar development of this industry, and a number of large new enterprises for the conversion of wood into pulp or paper are now in progress. It is both interesting and significant to visit a number of sawmills about Puget Sound and on the Columbia River where mill waste and low grade lumber of the pulping species, like West Coast hemlock and Sitka spruce, are cleaned, ground up into pulp chips, and carried by overhead conveyors directly to a near-' by pulp mill. As you travel further afield you will find many more sawmills no longer routing their mill waste of these species to the burner but shipping it, as chips or as slabs and mill-ends, by barge or freight car,. to the wood pulp plant.

The utilization of sawmill waste for the manufacture of pulp and paper has been much more widely and intensively developed in the Pacific Northwest than in any other section of the United States; and a very substantial proportion of the mill waste adapted to this use is now recovered and (Continued on Page 24)