Carl Crow Discusses The Lumber Situation

The Northwest lumber industry is norv just on the eve of moving into one of the semi-annual holiday periods. That this will have a temporary effect on the market is a foregone conclusion because it always does. Buyers who are in immediate need of stock, especially where they have been deferring placements and buying on a day-to-dav basis as they have been recently, are quite certain to want to make last-minute placements for quick shipment of lumber needed to complete jobs that are well advanced. That this will react beneficially, at least temporarily, to the mills that are prepared to supply kiln-dried uppers and common, particularly kiln-dried common, in mixed cars, is a foregone conclusion because the suppliers of this type already have good order files and will not be in a position to do much for eleventh hour placements.

An investigation which we have just made shows that tl-rere is going to be a lot of variance in the period of the Fourth of July holiday shutdowns. Some plants will be closed for two weeks. Others will take only a week off, that including some large plants. The effects of this temporary curtailment are somewhat softened, at least more than they were in bygone years, by the fact that the majority of the buyers of lumber, this including retail yards, also give their help vacations at this time, thereby reducing the immediate need for stock. We do not mean to give the impression that the tieups by the buyers are anywhere near sufficient to offset an immediate reduction in sawing programs but they are an important factor.

The greatest weakness in the market today, as everyone knows, is in the product which can be provided by mills that do not have facilities for supplying mixed cars containing kiln-dried uppers. These green mills have orders that have shrunk lower than they would like, and their inventories are slowly building up, as is proved by the figures published in the Barometer of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, rvhich includes only a minimum of the plants in this class.

Crow's Pacific Coast Lumber Digest is criticized by some folks for publishing reports that do not reflect a happy situation but during the 27 years we have been in this business we have held strictly to reporting the market as it is, regardless, and this we shall continue to do. For those who would make the wish father to the thought, ir is necessary to say that if they will study business conditions in general, the lumber market is not alone in its dou'nward trend, in fact some other commodities are in a

Opens Buying In Eureka

far rvorse position. The continuous softening of the stock market, despite the efforts which the administration has been making to encourage the buying of stocks, is a direct reflection of an overall picture which is unfavorable.

Emerging From Fool's Pcrrcrdise

It is astonishing to observe the thousands of young men and unthinking older ones who have come into the lumber industry during this most extended period of inflation that it has ever known, who think prices and conditions of the past few years have set up a new normal. It is this element in our industry which wails in loud complaint when even slight reference is made to the current status of business. They insist on a hush-hush policy which calls for making no mention of the overall economic situation while kidding ourselves into thinking things are good, regardless. No one likes a pessimist who always looks through blue glasses, but on the other hand we repeat that no problem as serious as that norv confronting the lumber industry has ever been solved by etuading the issue.

Take a look at the price record of key Fir items, 1939 to June, 1949:

The law of supply and demand is a natural law, just as natural as the law of gravity. lt can be deflected from its course temporarily, but only temporarily. No politicrl organizalion, no individual can ignore supply and demand for long. No sack is long enough to keep bribing the larv of supply and demand. This earth of ours is a productive sphere greater in its divine guidance than any selfish plan of control man can devise to hold its productiveness in restraint. Smart iumbe.-en are willing to acknorvledge this and also to admit that we are just emerging from a fool's paradise and have yet a considerable distance to go before leveling off at a healthy altitude which can be maintained.

(From Cro'iv's Pacific Coast Lumber Digest, June 16.)

Mill and Olfice Closed Ior

The mill and office of John W. Koehl & Son, sale sash & door manufacturers, Los Angeles, for vacation, July 4 to 9. All rvere back on the

Inc., wholern'as closc'cl job July 11.