St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-09-23
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
The Value of Work and building
Materials i'm Old Times.

Turning over some old papers the other
day, says the editor of the American Arch
itect, we came upon two or three bills fol
carpenter work and plastering, dating back
| to 1922, which have a certain interest, as
| showing the value of work and materials al
that time compared with the prices now
current. One thing which surprised us,
and will perhaps be equally surprising tC
our readers, is that the cost of lumber
keeping in view the comparative purchas-
| ing power of money, was at that time far
greater than it is now. SXty-tive years ago
a large part of the United States which is
now cleared was all ulibrOken forest. and
every township in the Eastern states must
have contained good deal of timber of the
original growth, yet we find refuse boards
charged in 1921 at Sill thousand feet.
which would be high price now. while
painters work, which is the only labor we
find charged in the bills just now before us,
as put down Oh the bill, which would natur-
ally include profit, at Is. and 3d., or S1.25
per day. The inference Is that it would
have taken painter or carpenter in those
good old days at least twice as long to earn
money enough to pay for boards to cover
his house as it does now, Notwithstanding
the fact that the timber is brought ten times
farther to market now than it was then,
and that the supply is, according to all ac-
counts, nearly exhausted. Among the
other items we find laths charged at Z shill-
ings, or SLIT per thousand and clapboards
at s'25 cents for ten," or $25 per thousand
This would be low price for pine clap
boards now in Massachusetts,, but it was a
high price then compared with the value of
labor Contrary to the general impression,
spruce and hemlock seem to have been very
generally used, and we find items of hem
lock boards at $11 a thousand feet. and
spruce at $14 or SIS. Clear pine plank,
which many people imagine to be much
scarcer material now than i'll the days when
secOnd-grOwth timber was unknown, is
charged in the bills at $50 thousand feet,
which would be tOlerably high price in
the same locality to-day, and correspondent
then to about twice the value, i'll the form
of labor and the cost of living. that it could
be exchanged for now. Of some materials
the cost seems to have been even greater
then than at the present. In bill for
painters work, dated 1927, we find oil
charged at % cents a quart, which. even
allowing for profit. is higher price than
most architects would now approve in a
days work bill, and varnish is put down at
the rate of 81 gallon, charge which
would just about pass an architects criti-
cism in these days. One of the items is for
green paint for chairs" so that if any of
our readers are of an archaeological turn of
mind they may make note here that the
fashion of covering furniture with this ugly
and adhesive coating. which has not died
out even in our own college days, dates
back at least fifty-nine years. The credits
on this bill, which amount to about S70,
include items of thirty-fve bushels of pota-
toes at 80 cents bushel, and two barrels
of cider differing apparently either in size
or quality, as one is credited at So and the
other at s shillings, Massachusetts currency,
or $1.33.