Pine Sales Gompany

bearc l2f7o gross profit and turns one hundred times in one year. However, the rate of return on your investment may be much higher providing, of course, that your cost of doing business on that commodity is less than the I2%%.You can turn the inventory in a commodity a thousand times and when the year ends and your gross margin is l2fu/o on that commodity and your cost of doing business on that commodity is 2217o, yolu are just 1olo on sales out of luck.

Another factor which tends to unstabilize our i,ndustry and makes cooperation necessary is the fact that the dealer for the most part sells commodities with no individuality, and it is common experience that when this is the case that that commodity will tend to seek a low price level. Those of you who handle hardware know this to be true. On which do you make the good margin o{ profit ? a padlock and a lock set? or a keg of nails and a square of corrugated iron ? Two bakers can take exactly the same quantity and exactly the same quality of apples, flour, sugar, etc., and each make an apple pie of the same size. On one corner, baker "A" puts up a sign-"{pple Pies 3Oc" and onthe other corner baker "B" puts up a sign-"Apple Pies 35c," and yet you may, after a few days, walk right past the baker with the 30c pie and pay 35c for one. Why? Because of some little touch-some little individuality. Bttt, can you put up a sign on your ssJngl-"I\To. I Com. 2x4's $35 per M" and hpve any one come over to you and pass up the fellow with the $30 sign ? No ! You, as a lumber dealer, are bound in a short time to sell your 2x4's grade for grade for the price your neighbor does, irrespective of what he knows about his business. But, you say, he won't sell for $30 very long-he can't afiord to, but u.nfortunately, the other dealer thinks he can and usually doesn't know that he can't till the end of the year, when an inventory is taken. IJnfortunately, the lumber dealer can.not earmark his goods and cannot cost his sales and know with accuracy how much he is making or losing periodically like a department store which marks its goods, or other kinds of business where inventory taking is not such a task. Any of you who have worked with the Average Per M, or Percentage Monthly Profit and Loss Reports, know the erroneous results those systems can sometimes show.

Another factor which tends to keep our market unstabilized is the increased number of lumber dealers and the increased capacity of all yards to do busi.ness. Within the city limits of Los Angeles, for instance, in the years 1921 to 1924, the average number of yards was right at 80 and the average permits were $14O,00O,00O per year. In the year 1937 in the same area there are right at 160 yards, and the permits this year will be about $70,000,000. In other words, double the number of yards and half the amount of permits, and in addition to this, most of the yards have increased facilities and equipment, and besides the percentage of lumber to permits is today much less than in 1921 to 1924. With this condition facing our industry today and in my opinion more than likely to be facing it tomorrow, it means that there can be no stabilization unless each established dealer becomes reconciled to the fact that he must accept his fair share of the business whether he likes it or not. It has been demonstrated time and time again that no gentleman's agreement nor any cooperative plan will last unless each dealer gets his fair share. Most dealers are willing, in order to have stabilized conditions, to accept his fair share, but unfortunately in most sections there are no arrangements to enable the dealer to know when he is getting his fair share. After he sees six or seven of his competitors' trucks go by, he thinks that his competitors are doing more business than they should and must be cutting the price, and then the downward spiral begins.

There are many other factors which tend to unstabilize the market, such as unwarranted credit extension, joint control on jobs without charge, certain cases of commission salesmen, the regrettable feeling in some quarters between the so-called big yard and the so-called little yard, and many such factors, but in my opinion one of the most disrupting influgn6s5-one of the factors which will break any cooperative effort any place-is the factor of disorderly distribution; in plain words-manufacturers and brokers selling lumber and other building commodities direct to the consumer. The "don't touch it" sales previously mentioned by me are, in many instances, the forerunner of direct selling to the consumer. A ma,nufacturer becomes provoked because he feels he has not gotten his share of the "don't touch it" sales in a section, and the next thing you know, he is selling direct. I have heard it argued that direct selling from manufacturer to consumer is a modern economical trend based on sound economics, and that we cannot, in the long run, resist this en'cr,oachment on our retail business. Time will not permit me to present arguments to effectually show that the exact opposite is true. Suffice it to say that experience in every section of this State has shown that the manufacturer or br'oker cannot properly serve the consumer, and if you will notice, you find that it is an ever changing parade of new manufacturers, new brokers and new consumers. One time for the consumer is usually enough.

Another example of disorderly distribution by certain manufacturers and brokers is the case of the'contractor who starts a so-called lumber yard in order to buy his lumber and material cheap for his building operations. Experience all over the State tells us that he is invariably doomed to failure. One of the biggest and wealthiest subdividers and home builders in Southern California tried this a few years ago, and after a year or so, sold all their stock to a Los Angeles lumber firm, and has ever since purchased large quantities of material f rom local dealers for his homes. If any builder could make a success of it, they should have. It is simply economically unsound, but there is always some new contractor lvho must learn this fact, and unfortunatelv-, sorne ne\\'manufacturer ar.rcl broker rvho must learn it, too. As an example-a house building contractor ina town close to Los Angeles is just now- completing buildings, rnill, etc., at a cost of no less than $10.000;h9 has put up his lumber sign, but makes no pretense of selling to the public. Incidentallv, horv I would like to show him some actual figures. I .ivould like to show him that on sales of over 1000 million feet of lumber at retail, over a period of time, the cost of doing business, over on the pile cost, exclusive of cartag'e expense, rvas $8.52 per M and that in 1937 to date, it has been $9.52 per Nt. I rvould like to show him an actual list of 1,105,450 ft. of lumber, rough and finish, taken from sales of about 75 actual house bills, in order to get correct proportions, and figured at today's cargo price plus wharfage, freigl-rt, piling, milling and cartage, plus $8.52 per Nf for expense, that it amounted to $5.83 per M more than dealers in Los Angeles rvould deliver it for on the job today. In other words, the house building contractor lumber yard vvill lose today $5.83 per N'I on all lumber he supplies himself, and incidentally, it shows the deplorable fact that lumber .dealers in Los Angeles today, on any goocl sized house bills, are selling at a loss of $5.83 per M.

The facts I have presented are knorvn to all retail lumber dealers. We all knou. thatthe industry is operating on too lowa gross margin of profit. We all knorv that onr costs of doing business are increasing, and that it is becoming more and more difficult to earn a return ol1 our investment. But what to do about it, is what none of rls seeln to know. My personal opinion is now, and has lteer.r, that some modified and simplified form of cooperative code with an abeyance of the Anti Trust Laws 'ivill have to be put into effect before our industry as a rvhole can be stabilized for over a few months at a time and our i,nvestments made secure. It may be that in time the Fair Trade Act and the Unfair Practices Act can be utilized to help us stabilize ourselves. But rvhatever step is taken, the imperative need of strong, well conducted local trade associations rvill become more and more evident, and it will become more ancl more evident that the local trade association must have the cooperation of some larger trade association rvhich, by reason of its large membership and consequent influence, can get results that no local trade association can hope to achieve. Y'our State Association can be made a chief factor in the work of stabilizing our industry; it can be made a primary instrument by which the investment of every retail dealer can be protected and secured, and with your full cooperation and rvith your full support, rve rvill try to make it so.

New Celotex Plant Now in Production

Bror G. Dahlberg, president of the Celotex Corporation, announces that the recently acquired Metuchen, Nerv Jersey, plant is norv in production on the first of a series of new products. This product, Celotex Traffic Top, is manufactured by an exclusive process and has many potential uses in the construction field.

At present it is speci{ically designed as a protection course for water-proofing and for use under rvood block flooring. As a protection course it allotvs for speedy and economical erection, back fill may be placed immediately. Under rvood block flooring it cushions traffic sh,ocks, recluces noise in factories, offices. railroad stations and other similar structures.

T. W. DANTCALIFORNIA VISITOR

Thos. W. Dant, of Dant & Russell, Inc., Portland, Ore., spent a week in the San Francisco Bay district recently rvith Seth L. Butler, the firm's Bay district and Coast Counties representative. They both flew to Fresno to confer with Ralph Duncan, Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley representative. Mr. Dant was on his 'ivay home from a trvo months' Eastern trip.

MAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

When a man's deeds are discovered afrter death, his angels, who are inquisitors, look into his face, and extend their examination over his whole body, beginning with the fingers of each hand. I was surprised at this, and the reason was thus explained to me: Every volition and thought of man is inscribed onhisbrain; for volition and thought have their beginnings in the brain, thence they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they .terminate. Whatever, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the brain. in the body, according to the order ofits parts. So a man writes his life in his physique, and thus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure.Swedenborg.

Evolution

By John Banister Tabb

Out of the dusk a shadow.

Then a spark; Out of the cloud a silence.

Then, a lark; Out of the heart a rapture,

Then, a pain, Out of the dead, cold ashes, Life again.

ROCK ROCK_TICK TOCK

A negro called upon an old friend, who received him in a rocking chair. The visitor noticed not only that his host did not rise, but that he continued to rock himself to and fro in a curious way.

"You ain't ill, is you, Harrison?" he asked, anxiously.

"No, I ain't ill, Mose."

There was a moment's silence, during which the caller gazed, wide-eyed at the rocking figure.

"Den," continued Mose, "why does you rock yo'se'f dat way all de time?"

"Well," explained Harrison, "you knows BiU Blott? He sold me a silvah watch cheap, an' if f stop movin, like dis, dat watch won't go !"

November

By Mahlon Leonard Fisher

Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear, As kings have heard, and trembled on their thrones; The old will feel the weight of mossy stones; The young alone will laugh and scoff at fear. It is the tread of armies marching near, From scarlet lands to lands forever pale; It is a bugle dying down the gale; It is the sudden gushing of a tear. And it is hands that grope at ghostly doors; And romp of spirit-children on the pave; It is the tender sighing of the brave

Who fell, ah ! long ago, in futile wars; It is such sound as death; and, after all, 'Tis but the forest letting dead leaves fall.

I live on the sunny side of the street; shady folks live on the other. I have always preferred the sunshine and have tried to put other people there, if only for an hour or two at a time.-Marshall P. Wilder.

Style Versus Feet

He was a stout man, with large, broad feet, and although several pairs of boots were shown to him he refused them.

"I must have square toes," he explained to the assistant. The young man sighed. "But square toes are not stocked now, sir," he insisted. "Pointed toes are fashionable this season."

The stout man gave an angry stare. "That may be," he retorted, "but I happen to be wearing last season's feet."

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.-Mark Twain.

Price Cutters

Customer: "What! Fifteen cents a pound for sulphur! It's outrageous ! I can go across the street and get it for ten.tt

Druggist: "Yes, and I know where you can get it for nothing."