Lumber

Lumber is an item used in most Harvest Moon games to build new buildings and to upgrade buildings, including your house. You obtain lumber either from buying it, which is expensive, or chopping down trees. It takes a lot of lumber to upgrade and build, and takes a lot of time to obtain.

Harvest Moon
Wood also referred to as material by the Wood Storage sign and the Master Carpenter is a basic construction resource. Wood is used for "building fences and expanding your house".

Wood is gathered by breaking stumps with the Axe around your farm and on the mountain side. Each stump provides 6 pieces of wood.

Harvest Moon 64
Lumber functions the same way as it had in the original Harvest Moon. But in this new game, it takes less lumber to build certain things than it did in the original title.

Harvest Moon: Back To Nature
Lumber has a slightly different skin in Back to Nature. Lumber can be bought from the woodcutter just like the other games and you can also obtain it by cutting down trees. It's main use is to make fences for your animals or crops.

Harvest Moon: GBC (Series)
Lumber in the GBC series functions the same way as the other titles. You can cut down trees to obtain it, and it is used to build fences for your animals and crops.

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town
In this GBA Harvest Moon lumber functions as it did in the original. However, unlike the original, rocks and stones could be used to build a fence rather than lumber, which takes a lot of time to obtain.

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
There are two types of lumber in Magical Melody; lumber, and old lumber. Lumber is again used to build and expand on buildings. It is also used to create pastures and fences. If a piece of lumber stays out for to long, it will lose It's shape and turn into old lumber. If you leave this lumber out for too long, one day you may decide to check up on your fence and the old lumber would have vanished and you will have to stop up the hole with a fresh piece.

Harvest Moon: DS
In Harvest Moon DS Lumber is the second weakest building material. Lumber by itself is once again used for fencing but in this game you can choose to build your buildings with fodder, lumber, stone, or golden lumber.

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade
Lumber can be collected by chopping down any tree. It is used to upgrade the player's house, barn and coop.

Golden Lumber
Golden lumber is the strongest building material in Harvest Moon: DS. Golden lumber is very expensive, costing 100,000G per piece. Golden lumber can also be used to make fences but you may anger the townsfolk (only in Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town).

Old Lumber
When lumber gets a little too weathered, it turns into old lumber. Old lumber is just a weaker version of lumber that shows you that you need to swap out this piece for a new piece before it vanishes and is lost forever.