THE CALIFOR}IIA LUMBERMERCHANT

How Lumber Looks

Lumber production during the week ended November 15, 194L, was 8 per cent less than the previous week, shipments were 3 per cent less, and new business one per cent less, according to reports to the National Lumber Manufacturers Association from regional associations covering the operations of representative hardwood and softwood mills.

During the week ended November 15,462 mills produced 2D,I3I,W feet of hardwoods and softwoods combined, shipped 230,450,000 feet, and booked orders of. 216,937,W feet.

Lumber orders for the week by 386 softwood mills totaled 206,135,000 feet, shipments were 220,348,000 feet, and production was 218,456,000 feet. 89 hardwood mills for the week gave new business as 10,802,000 feet, shipments 10,102,000 feet, and production 10,675,00O feet.

Seattle, Washington, November 10, 1941.-The weekly average of West Coast lumber production in October (5 weeks) was 179,459,000 board feet, or 112.7 per cent of estimated capacity, according to the West Coast Lumbermen's Association in its monthly survey of the industry. Orders averaged 154,882,000 board feet; shipments, 173,497,W0. Weekly averages for September were: production, 172,255,W board feet (87.5 per cent of the I926-l9D average), ; orders, 153,566,000 ; shipments, 17 1,87 l,m. 44 weeks of 1941, cumulative production, 7,391,596,m board f eet 1 same period, 194M,014.99O,000 ; 1939,-5,427,o72,Acp.

Orders lor 44 weeks of. l94l break down as follows : rail, 4,26,574,0W board feet; domestic cargo, 1,963,27I,ffi0; ex' port, 187,431,000; local 1,015,453,000.

The industry's unfilled order file stood at 607,399,m board feet at the end of October; gross stocks, at 854,452,000.

The two features of the West Coast lumber situation at this period are the completion of the all-out production drive urged on the industry by defense agencies in midsummer, and uncertainty due to restrictions on building metals and to the shortage of ships.

In its response to urgent defense requirements for lumber, West Coast production since midsummer has exceeded estimated possibilities by about 15 per cent. Deliveries have been made on schedule, even in the most urgent cases, and the volume of unshipped orders that the mills had on their books during the summer months has been substantially reduced. The emergency summer job is done.

It is uncertain how the future of the industry will chart itself amid a maze of different factors :

(1) There will be additional requirements for national defense, with a probable new cantonment program in the winter and spring.

(2) More lumber is being used in heavy construction, taking the place of steel.

(3) The industry is heavily handicapped in important markets by the shortage of ships.

(4) The moSt important factor is the decrease in private (Continued on Page 30)

"ffe also fights who helps a fighter fight, He doth his bit for Freedom, God, and Right. Not all may face the shot and shellA patriot he who doth his task full wellBehind the lines. Whose deeds and words and life, Show love of country-service--+acrifice.

Back in 1918 when *" "** *""U War was raging, old John L. Sullivan, most famous of all heavyweight pfize fighters and himself an old man and close to the grave at that time, predicted that the Germans would lose the war. But he gave a different reason for his opinion than was generally Biven then, or thought of now. The Hun was bound ro lose, said the famous old slugger, ..Because they get mad too quick." He added: "In the prize ring, when you see a fighter begin to boil over and see red in the first round, you know that the next thing he won't be able to see at all." So, he deduced that the Germans would lose the war because they are mad all the time they are fighting. rJ*{.

And old John L. sent THfS message to the American soldiers fighting in France, and it was recorded in all the newspapers of the country at that time. He said: ,,Tell 'em they can't go wrong if they keep their feet warm, their heads cool, and their mouths shut." Which is not bad advice for any men, any time.

A friend sends in tlr. *r.y-"t I -""rrirr" that was broken dourn in an industrial plant, and none of their own men could get it 6xed and running. So they sent for a young mechanical wizard. who fixed it and put it in operation in no time at all. When they got his bill, it read like this: "One thingamajig, 50 cents; time, one dollar; brains, S23.50; total $25.

A riot of opinions *".;.; ,rl ur"u and printed explain- ing-or trying to-why Hitler suddenly turned Eastward last June, and fell tooth and claw upon his erstwhile partner in crime, Joe Stalin. Why not turn back a century and more to a previous personification of force and frightfulness and ambition incarnate, one Napoleon Bonaparte, for the explanation of Hitler's action? For it was Napoleon who said: "The cure for civil dissension, is war abroad." That was the way Napoleon figured the thing. Maybe HitIer did, also.

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We have heard and read a lot about the part the lumber industry has been playing in the defense program. But every where I go I hear and see new and remarkable demonstrations to prove it, not only with the lumber industry proper, but with some of its associated industries. For instance, the other day I went into a huge woodworking plant that was engaged in manufacturing doors of various sorts. I watched the skillful manufacture of some of the finest softwood doors I ever saw made in my life, thick, strong, wonderfully constructed slab doors, made from the finest materials this continent can produce. And I was soon told. They were barracks doors, to be used in the housing of American soldiers "somewhere outside this continent." They were built to specifications, and were a marvelous product.

***

In another spot I saw the very finest screen doors being made that I had ever laid eyes on. Wonderfully selected wood, heavy copper wire with copper reinforcements, doors of unusual thickness and strength that looked good for an entire lifetime. I was assured that they were lifetime doors, and they were being built to'specification for some more of our American boys' lodgings, somewhere in the world. A barracks requires strong doors, and strong screens to stand up under the use to which they are put. Wherever these barracks may be, they will have the finest doors and screens that money can buy. Which is the way it should be.

At still another place I went through a woodworking plant that has been entirely transformed into a factory for manufacturing woodwork for some of the great fleet of defense boats this nation is building. In this case the con' tractors leased an entire big warehouse, filled it with the finest machinery and mechanical equipment to perform the services desired, and put an army of skilled men to work cutting, fitting, gluing, and preparing a thousand different pieces of woodwork to be used in the interior of our new ships. The finest of materials are used to turn out the finest possible wood products.

In still another place I went to, I spent hours looking over a tremendous stock of wooden ship timbers, the like of which I had not seen before. All of them came fronr foreign lands, and were brought in to fill the need of our ship building program for hardwood ship timbers of a size and character difficult to secure from our American forests. I saw hardwood timbers as big as big Douglas Fir timbers, yet as straight, and as clear as any softwood timber I ever saw in my life. Imagine very dense wood, something like oak yet more dense, with no knots or defects in sight, twenty-odd inches square, and thirty or more feet long. I saw lots of this. It comes from South America, to supply a need for big, straight, long, clear, dense hardwood timbers for boat building. I saw smaller foreign hardwood boat planking and timber up to forty feet long, and practically clear. I was told that the owner of this particular stock of stuff has been searching the world to find hardwood to fit the needs of the boat building effort we are now making. Never have I inspected a more impressive looking timber yard than this one. For all these huge timbers were straight. ***

All over this country in innumerable woodworking plants, men are making things for the defense program that they never made before. All someone has to say to them is-"this is what q7s q7a1f"-4nd they get it. Forrnulas have been changed, machinery has been improvised and rearranged, and anything else necessary has been done to provide the wooden things, in whatever shape or style desired, that any of the governmerrt agencies or contractors need. Versatile is the name for wood, and the wood workers of America are today performing genuine miracles and Iots of them, to provide this nation with whatever wooden things it may need, in this time of emergency.