When you $et tn a tight place you can fall back on Hammond!

Like all careful lumber merchants you probably are occasionally up against it to fiU big rush orders. It would certainly not pay you to carry big reserve stocks to meet these occasional emergencies.

Fortunately there is an easy way out in such cases. Call on Hammond ! There are seventysix acres of lumber, sash and doors, paint, hardware, roofing, plaster, cement, hardwoods, insulation, etc., in our two main yards. Let these be your reserve stocks!

The Hammond reserves are at your service. Use them.

(Continued from Paee 24) plus the unliquidated underweights on thirty million feet more in stock, which lvould bring the figure up $9O000 more, or a total of 5455,000 return on an investment of $30E,000, and that in a period, figuring on full operating time, of less than nineteen months, it certainly demonstrates the fact that the method is profitable. Furthermore, on items of common lumber, the price secured in the market is $2 to $10 per thousand feet more than comparable items sold by other companies as shown by r€ports on orders cleared through the Davis Exchange at Portland.

"The thought I am trying to bring home to you is that it is profitable. I am trying to demonstrate to you the fact that not only has it resulted in saving in the cost of transportation, but it has decidedly raised the value of the product in the market. It is a fact, todan that on No. 2 common 6-inch fir, in the Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas ierritory, we are securing $1.50 to $2 more than for pine. We find that this situation applies to customcrs who are buying fir in Texas, not only from our company but from other manufactwers at.lower prices than oinc. are selling the fir product ior higher iricis to their trade than pine. If this fact does not demonstrate the fact that fir, propcrly pre- pa.red, is a more merchantablc -pro-duci fhan pine, I do not know anything that will.

"The continuation of ovcrctowding the congested markets of California and the Attrantic scaboard, without due regard to the, rail markets, if continued will always result' in a continuation of ptescnt unprofitablc conditions. If we are to reap the benefit of thc markets which must be very largely abandoned by southern pine because of lack of production; if we are to keep the markets we have- for lumber, we must prepare our product in a satisfaciory way foi tfre trade; givc it what it rpants and make it pay for what it g€ts. Curtailment of production, becausc prices are declining, in view of the heavy volume of busincss which we have, is never going to cure our situation. The thing we have got to do is study market require- ments, prepare our production for the markets, and develop the markcts for fir lumber. The condition of supply and demand which has existed since January I this year also existed last year and yet prices today are not as satisfactory as they were in 1924, at.which time the figures indicated a real overproduc- tion. The question I would like to isk you is this: How much morc lumber would ii be necessary for the fir lumber industry to sell than it produces to afrcct favorably the values of fir? With 5 percent in sales lhis year in excess of production, market values hivc incrcased 6 percent per thousand feet. What pcrccntage of salcs in excess of production pould be necessary to give us thd g3, g4 or g5 neccssary to put this industry on a'profit- ab-lc b.asis? Or, would any pcrcentige of satcs in exccsg of production. in facc of the ovcrcrowding of unwilling markcts. cvcr produce a satisfactory pricc for the product?

The year 1906; the war ycafs of 1914 to 1919; the year 1923, wcrc prosperous ycars for thc fir lumbcr industry. It took a San Francisco fire in 1906 to produce this condition; a world widc war during the war period, and a Japanesc earthquake in 1923 to produce profitable conditions for the fir business. Thcse conditions increased the volume to water markcts and removed the congested selling in Californira. Is it possible that it is necessary to have local, foreign and international disasters to provide a rcasonable earning situation for the fir lumber industry?

"The United States has been prosperous and never has there becn so great a period of building in the history of the country. Our agricultural sections are today more than reasonably profitable and our production has been consumed in these years in greater proportion than produced, and yet, the valucs are growing annually less. Does it not seem that there is somethins else wrong with the fir industry, and is it not possible-to correct the situation, or must we reach the conclusion that there is not the ability in this industry properly to prcpare and meichandise the pro- duct? There is not a banking institution last of the Mississippi River, and I doubt that there is any on the Pacific coast, but what is looking with fear on this situation. Unless we_ do somc_thing oursclves to hclp ourselves; unlcss we sit down and study the proposition without prejudice, looHng towar<i what can be donc, nothing is going to help thc fir industry and ttre last virgin stand of timber and the bcst stand of timber that cver cxistcd will be liquidatcd without carnings and with grcat waste."