New-York tribune., 1921-09-05
Big Shipments
OF Materials
For Building
Heavy Buying for Immedi-
ate Construction Begins
to Tax Production; Bot
tom Prices Are Reached

Buying for building construction is
beginning to tax the production capa-
city Of certain building material manu-
featuring industries, according to the
current "Dow Service Daily Building
Reports"
This condition of affairs lends con-
fiimation to recent "Dow Service" OBJ
scrvations to the effect that price re-
covery in the building construction
industry has definitely set in. 1t full
fills the predictions made in this col
umn and elsewhere as long ago as
August, 1919, that pricesturn upward
would certainly follow the panicky
price pruning that was forced upon an
industry wofully undersupplied when
public opinion was beginning to balk
construction work until prices were
brought back to pre-war levels. Gen.
eral commodity prices were under pres
sure for reduction then because stocks
had been overproduced. Building
material stocks have been underpro-
duced ever since the war and their con-
dition in the face of growing demand
is worse to-day than it has been in
generations. The Federal Reserve
Banks computation fixes July, 1921, as
the time of the turn in price declines.
Spruce lath advanced last week from
s10.50 to S11.50 and sig thousand
Builders found it increasingly difficult.
even with attractive orders to buy
Hudson or Raritan brick below SIS q
thousand wholesale-handlng haulage
livered prices.
AS far as the basic building mate
rial market is concerned, it is MOI:
hard to establish the economic reasons
why present price levels cannot be
sustained long under existing condi-
tiens of demand and supply. A few
citations will suffice.
Big Shipments of Lumber
national lumber cut has tota'cd
ments against that total were 1876,
032,O00 feet. For the week ended Au-
gust 26 the shipments totaled 74,000,-
900 feet In the same period only
100000 feet were cut.
Cement offers another example:
From January to July, inclusive, pro-
duction totaled 50O36,000 barrels,
Against that total 50,376000 barrels
were shipped. In the month Of July,
according to government statistics just
issued, 10,301 900 barrels were shipped,
against LOtdl ndJlOn-WlQc
Of 9,56S,000. The stocks on hand at
this time are more than a million bar
rels below the reserve stock for any
month except January this year.
In common brick the Hudson whole
sale market here was wholly sold out
on Friday evening. No definite official
count has been made of the supply of
Hudson common brick that will be
available for this market this year, but
it is known to be below any recent years
reserve excepting that of 1918-'19.
In normal times a total production of
I 200, 100000 brick is accredited to the
Hudson district, with 119 plants oper
ating. About forty of these plants are
idle and have been since the war.
Those that have been operating have
not been able to turn out more than
30 per cent of capacity. A normal
winters reserve is computed to be at
o0,000,0o0 brick This year the re-
serve will be less than. that If coal is
hard to get and weather forces an early
shut down the reserve will be below
100000 brick. At 3oo,oo0,0O0 New
York will have ample supply for
moderate construction program, rating.
say, 35 per cent of 1914 normal. If
the present rate of consumption is
maintained, however, or considerably
as al present seems possible, prices of
common brick cannot be maintained at
present levels.
Glass is another industry where ship
ments are heavier than is productions
Plaster and lime are not materials
characterized by vast uncalled-for
stocks that would force sacrifice prices.
There are those who have been await
ing the return of normal times" in
the building business. The term "nor-
NAL times" is hard to define, but in
building construction a fair idea of