Evening star., 1943-12-26
Lumber Shortage Now
Is Most Acute Of All
Needed Raw Products
Ey the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
Lumber shortages are so serious
the War Production Board soon may
be asking some pointed questions
about boarding if anybody runs
silver in his finger.
Harried WPB executives say tim
Der products constitute our most
critical raw materials problem. The
war program got by this year only
by drawing on stockpiles, as 1943
production of $4,000 100000 board
feet fell oO,oOo,0O0 feet short of
1943 consumption.
There isn't any reserve to draw
on next year, and every 1914 esti-
mate of production VS.. minimum
requirements has the WPB lumber
chiefs sending out for another fam
ily-size bottle of aspirin. The pro-
duction deficit is expected at least
to match this years 100000, 1000
foot total
-Four billion board feet of lumber
would build a girdle 80 feet wide
right around the world where this
pldneI is nlppleSt.
This plank road around the world
we didn't turn out this year is
matched by the great wooden noun
tain of pulpwood we aren't going to
produce in 1914, either. The official
Canadian-American estimate of "A
pulpwood shortage is 6,5OO,OOO cords.
In mean-something terms, $780,
600 cords would make mountain a
city block square and five miles high.
Manpower Is Answer.
The villain in this case of the
missing timber is the man who
wasn't there - absent manpower.
Normally the lumber industry en-
ploys 100000, but nowadays the bull
COOKS are setting only 100000 places
on the cook-shack tables.
They're also hunting 1880 addi-
tlonal pulpWood cutters, but indus
try executives say it would be easier
to find 1880 pairs of nylon stock
mgs, each with quart of prewar
whisky in the toe.
Next to manpoWer, lack of ade-
quate motive power is the big head
ache in the woods. The SUPER
heavy duty trucks and tractors re-
qulred in logging operations are just
what the Army ordered for tough
held duty. Truck production is prac-
tlcally all marked out for the mill
tary. Currently, the logging opera
tors would be tickled to get ade-
quate repair parts, let alone new
trucks and tractors.
While production is beset by lack
OF men, and machines, estimates of
1914 minimum requirements have
lumber executives lunching on their
flngernails.
Grating and boxing for overseas
shipment of war goods are swallow
ing timber faster than ternites.
Grating required 100000, 900 board
feet of lumber in 1941, 14,100 900 900
board feet in 1943 or 7/16 of all
lumber produced in the United
States.
Construction of military Canton
ments in this country is virtually
complete, but WPB wood experts
warn that millions of men are going
overseas in 1914, and that means
base camps, base hospitals and other
construction abroad, all of which re-
quire lumber.
Overseas Needs Increase.
Boxing and Grating lumber needs
certainly will increase as more Yanks
get across. needing more things
shipped to them. Overseas construc-
tion needs will increase and can't
be cut.
Military truck bodies take great
quantities of hardwood and 1914 will
be the biggest production year for
military trucks.
The lumber executives take time
to point these things out as long
way of saying that the wood left
over for nonessential civilian use
could be carried home in a 65s hat.
The business of major surgery on
allowances Of wood products for
civilian use is under way.
So far, Southern yellow pine has