NATIONAL FOREST WORK 



The New Forest Products Laboratory 



The new forest products laboratory at 

 Madison, Wis., is completed and will be for- 

 mally opened June 4. William L. Hall, chief 

 of the forest products division of the Forest 

 Service, will move his headquarters from 

 Washington to Madison. The laboratory has 

 been established to aid, through experiments 

 and demonstrations, the lessening of waste in 

 the manufacture and use of wood. It is a 

 cooperative undertaking between the United 

 States Department of Agriculture and the 

 University of Wisconsin. The state has 

 erected for the purpose a new building at 

 the university and will furnish also the light, 

 heat, and power. The Department of Agri- 

 culture has supplied the equipment and ap- 

 paratus and will maintain the force of thirty- 

 five or forty persons required to carry on the 

 work. Through this arrangement, the United 

 States has secured perhaps the largest and 

 best equipped wood testing laboratory in 

 the world. 



A number of vacancies in engineering posi- 

 tions in connection with the work will be 

 filled in ]\Iay and June. Among these are 

 positions of engineer in wood preservation, 

 engineer in timber testing, and chemical en 

 gineering. These positions will be given to 

 men with a basis of thorough engineering 

 training, or two or three years' experience 

 in practical work. 



The laboratory will be prepared to make 

 tests on the strength and other properties 

 of wood, to investigate the processes of treat- 

 ing timber to prevent destruction by decay 

 and other causes, to study the saving of 

 wood refuse by distillation processes, to 

 examine the fiber of various woods for 

 paper and other purposes, and to determine 

 the influence of the microscopic structure of 

 wood on its characteristics and properties. 

 Facilities are at hand, in fact, for almost 

 any kind of test on wood that practical con- 

 ditions may require. 



Lumber manufacturing and wood-using 

 industries are keenly interested in the work 

 on account of its practical bearing on re- 

 ducing waste of wood — to them a subject of 

 vital concern. Already they have proposed 

 many experiments and supplied much test- 

 ing material, which is awaiting attention. 



Many prominent men of the lumbering and 

 wood-using industries have signified their 

 intention to attend on the day of the open- 

 ing. Several organizations expect to hold 

 directors' meetings or conferences at that 

 time to consider, among other matters, plans 

 for making wide practical use of the labora- 



tory. A short, appropriate general program 

 will be arranged, and there will be a sys- 

 tematic inspection of the laboratory, with 

 demonstration work in progress at the time. 

 The entire exercises will occupy but" one 

 day, and visitors will be able to return to 

 Chicago the same evening. 



t« )^ J¥ 



The Ratio of Manufactured to Rough Lumber 



In connection with a study of the wood- 

 using industries of various states, the United 

 States Department of Agriculture is learn- 

 ing what part of the rough lumber output of 

 our American sawmills passes through a 

 second process of manufacture before it is 

 ready for the consumer. The study is re- 

 garded as haying an important bearing on the 

 extent to which more economical use of our 

 forest resources can be brought about. So 

 far, the results obtained show that more than 

 five-eighths of the rough lumber sawed is to 

 be counted as the raw material for other 

 industries which convert it into a more highly 

 finished and more valuable product. 



In the United States waste in the woods, 

 the mill, and the factory is so great that 

 two-thirds of what was in the tree is lost on 

 the way to the consumer. The heaviest part 

 of this loss takes place in the sawmills. 

 Much of this mill waste is unavoidable under 

 present conditions, but the greater the de- 

 mand for the product and the higher its 

 value, the better will economy pay. Waste 

 in manufacture is very small, compared with 

 that at the sawmill. Study of the demands 

 of the wood-using industries may be a means 

 of finding out how the mill may profitably 

 market a part of what now goes to the burner 

 in sawdust, slabs, and trimmings. 



Statistics of the wood-using industries of 

 Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, 

 and Wisconsin, lately gathered by the De- 

 partment of Agriculture in cooperation with 

 these states, show that of their total saw- 

 mill output thirty-six per cent is used in 

 the form of rough lumber and sixty-four per 

 cent is manufactured into other forms of 

 output. If the same ratio holds for the 

 entire country as for these states, about 

 13,000,000,000 feet of lumber is used yearly 

 in rough form and 23,500,000,000 feet is fur- 

 ther manufactured. 



This is the first time that detailed figures 

 have been obtained on this subject. The 

 study which has yielded these figures has 

 also in view to ascertain what commodities 

 are made wholly or partly of wood, the va- 

 rious kinds of wood used, their origin, and 



307 



