Timber Mart-South, Resource to the Forestry Community

For almost 20 years, Frank Norris produced Timber Mart-South, a brief, quarterly report of the market for raw forest products in 11 southern states. Frank retired from his former involvement in 1995. Since then the Frank W. Norris Foundation through the Daniel B. Warnell School of Forest Resources at UGA has compiled and published Timber Mart-South Quarterly Reports.

The Beginning
After graduating from the University of Georgia Forestry School in 1947 and serving in WW II, Frank Norris began a forester's career working in private industry, as a consultant, and later as owner of a pulpwood dealership and logging business. With his experience in the industry, Frank initiated Timber Mart-South in 1976 to benefit both private landowners and industry professionals. Frank worked diligently and almost single-handedly to provide this service so valuable to private companies, consultants, landowners, and others. He recognized a need to assist private land owners who had little knowledge of the value of their lands and consulting professionals who faced difficulty knowing current market prices in regions where they had little experience.

Commitment to Continuity
The Frank W. Norris Foundation is a private foundation created to provide continuity and direction for the publication of Timber Mart-South. The Foundation acquired all rights and assets of Timber Mart-South, Inc., and contracted with the Daniel B. Warnell School of Forest Resources at UGA to compile, publish and distribute Timber Mart-South. The School maintains and enhances the accuracy of the marketing information used in producing the report and employs the necessary resources to produce a reliable, timely and unbiased product that reflects regional wood market price levels.

Institutionalizing this service assures long term available and reliable information for use by the forest products community. Since the School took over publication of Timber Mart- South, subscriptions to the quarterly report have more than doubled and a newsletter now summarizes events and trends in the timber market. In 1998, the School added a web site to describe the service and post the newsletter. By 2001, the high average, low average and average prices in each market have been digitized for on-line access, as have the newsletters and quarterly reports.Timber Mart-South (TMS) staff members provide research assistance throughout the business day, ready to fill orders for historical price reports using the TMS price database.

How We Survey
Our staff provides a standard form, paper or electronic, for reporting market activity of a broad cross section of the timber industry. Our Reporters, both companies and individuals, are actively engaged in the day to day operation of selling and buying timber on the stump and delivering to yards and mills. From these reports, over each quarter, these data are sorted and tabulated to arrive at a grouping of price ranges, low and high. From these groupings a simple average is obtained for each state, area, and product.

TMS publishes data gathered with diligence and from sources considered reliable. We gather and publish information as it exists and do not attempt to set or influence prices. Specific markets, because of variations in field work and time element, sometimes result in prices which are somewhat lower or higher than those published.

These are not absolute Lows or Highs; but an Average of Lows and Average of Highs.

BE AWARE THAT PRICES VARY GREATLY DEPENDING ON MANY FACTORS AND THESE MAY OR MAY NOT REFLECT LOCAL TIMBER SALES.