Optifornia Oontinues To Be Outstandins Giant Of Plyrvood Oonsumption And IDeaIer Sales

By Jack Dionne

It seems fair and proper that once each year THE CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT should print and publish a special PLYWOOD ISSUE.

The reason is that few people in the building, or even in the plywood industry itself have a full understanding of tl-re vital importance of California to the softr'vood plywood industry. 'We find that true even with the plywood manufacturers themselves.

For California is the one great and outstanding giant among the various states of the union when it comes to building r,vith plywood.

And r,vhen it comes to lumber dealer sales of plywood, California outranks all other states to an even greater degree than in just plywood consumption.

Figures of the Douglas Fir Plywood Association show that somewhere between 53 and 60 per cent of all Fir plywood produced is sold tl-rrough the dealer. And in California the percentage is still greater than that general average. This for the reason that several of the other states which consume great quantities of plywood, use it largely for industrial purposes.

Just to illustrate horv dominant a part the State of California plays in the plywood game, get this, and let it sink in:

In 1948 California consumed approximately as much Douglas Fir plyrvood as all of the following states combined: Vermont, Nerv llampshire, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Texas, Iqwa, Minnesota, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, I{ansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, Colo- ' rado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Kentucky, and Connecticut. Twenty-seven states.

Folks shake hands with the plyr,vood champ-California.

And it has been that way from the very beginning, for California started out to be the biggest consumer and buyer of Fir plywood from the very inception of that industry in the Northwest, and with every year that passes this prominence grows.

Most of the other large building states of the nation were slow to take up the use of plywood for general building uses. Dealers were slow to buy and boost it, preferring to follorv the old-timey method of building broad wooden surfaces out of small boards. It was California that developed many of the bountiful and innumerable values of plyu'ood for ALL building purposes, and rvith every year that passes it creates and improvises more n'ays for cutting, and sa'iving, and nailing plyrvcod into building shapes.

In 1948 California consumed 309,800,000 square feet of Douglas Fir plywood. The second state in plyn'ood con- sumption was Washington, which consumed 244,400,000 feet, the preponderance of which was consumed by the many great door and millwork plants of that state. Oregon was likewise a big consumer, ranking fourth in the nation with 139,400,000 feet, also consumed to a very large extent by great industrial plants. The third state in plyrvood consumption was Illinois which took 147,800,@0 square feet, using much of it in door and milhvork factories. New York rvas next rvith consumption of 128,600,000 feet, while Pennsylvania follorved with 115,000,000 feet, and Indiana was next with 112,600,000 feet. These seven states, California, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana u'ere the only states that consumed more than one hundred million feet of Fir plywood last year. Ohio r,vith 76,400,0N, and Massachusetts rvith 68.400.000 deserve honorable mention as next in line.

Giqnt lcthes like this peel veneer lrom logs ol selecl Douglcs fir. Ordincrily ihese peeler logs crre lrom lhree to eight leet in dicmter. The log is rotsted against c keen edged blqde which shqves off c ribbon oI wood usually ftom l,/100 to 3,/16 inch in ihickneEg.

In the South, Texas consumed 42,200,000, which put

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