The New York herald., 1922-02-19

inches and pine wall and floor boards
two feet wide or more.
To-day everything is very different.
There had been a gradual increase of
stumpage rates before the war, also in
creases In wages and other costs. and
lumber was expensive enough when the
war came on. largely through the ad-
vent of the pulp mills, which from small
beginnings in the eighties rapidly ex-
tended their field and scope OF opera
tions until, in 1915, they owned most OF
the desirable timber lands and were
eating up rather more than half Of the
s0o.oO0.0oO feet Of spruce cut In the
State annually.
Then the war set things booming
faster than ever. Wages were the first
thing to so skyward, owing to the scar
city of help. American citizens OF the
right age were drafted for the army or
for war industries. and the woods
crews had to be recruited from among
a,ioDs-Poles. Russians. Lithuanians
Firms. Norwegians. Swedes and men
from all corners of the earth.
Aliens Poor workmen.
For ordinary woods work, In opera
tions for long logs, wages went as high
as $s2 a month, with first-class board,
and considering the fact that 1t re-
quires two or three Of these foreigners
do do the work of one good native
woodsman, 1t can be seen that the op-
orators were paying a fancy price for
their logs, without taking into ac-
cost of supplies. Men who could not
speak a word of English. and were
almost too lazy to move, got So a day
and board for cutting four foot pulp
wood. or $275 to $3.50 cord when work.
ing by the piece and paying their own
board at the rate of rs cents to 81 a
day. Some OF these piece workers made
as much as $3.50 or 5000 month, few
even more, and most of the money was
spent for whisky and joy rides In Ban
gor or lost in gambling.
AS late as July. 1920. alien laborers
who never owned a good suit Of clothes
until they came to this country were
staggering around Exchange street
contemptuously rejecting offers of s. sc
to 50 a cord for chopping cordwood or
saving pulpwood. They had wads OF
money. were feeling rich. and picking
their jobs.
Then. early in the fall OF 1920, the
bottom began to drop out. Peeled pulp
wood fell from $31 cord to S21, and
rough from $23 to s13, while, with an
overstock on hand everywhere, cutting
operations were sharply curtaiied
Wages went down rapidly. but the bot
tom was not reached that year. as much
as s1.75 a day being paid In the fall OF
1920. The slump continued In 1921, and
IN the fall OF that year the most that
any woodsman could get was s1.25 a
day, while the great majority of those
who were lucky to get jobs at all went
iE at 81 a day, with time out and board
charged for sickness.
Spruce lumber which at one time in
1919 reached s63 to s65 a thousand feet,
now is quoted at $40 to S45 for dimen-
sions and s32 to $40 for randoms. while
pulpwood Is a drug. When the boom was
on every farmer In Maine who had a
wood lot. and countless small operators,
went to work at cutting four foot stuff
for the pulp mills. expecting to get fat
prices. These people. for the most part,
still have the wood on hand. and. as two
or three seasons outdoors usually makes
the wood dozy and unfit for pulp ma
terial, they are likely to keep II. The
whole Eastern section of Maine Is dot
ted with piles OF pulpwood. for which
there Is no demand, the big manufac-
turers having mountains Of the same
stuff heaped UP at their mills.
The great mystery of the time in
Maine is why. knowing as they must
have known. that the war boom was
did the big pulp concerns pile up several
years supply Of wood at top prices?" No
one as yet has been able to answer that
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