STATISTICS 



The Census Returns of Production from Forests 



The present census will give fuller and 

 more complete statistics of wood products 

 than the country has ever had. Incidentally 

 it may be remarked that these statistics will 

 give striking confirmation at many points to 

 the contentions of the advocates of conser- 

 vative forestry as an economic necessity. 

 The figures hitherto available have not had 

 the advantage of the organization and close 

 canvass of a general census, so that they 

 have necessarily been incomplete and the 

 blank spaces have had to be filled by esti- 

 mates. This does not detract from their sub- 

 stantial correctness and their value in as- 

 certaining general principles, but confirmation 

 of conclusions and a means of checking re- 

 sults are sought through the collection of 

 the fullest possible data. 



The Census Bureau has issued preliminary 

 comparative reports for the years 1907, 1908, 

 and 1909, on the production of lamber, lath, 

 and shingles, and on the wood-pulp and 

 cross-tie industries. These reports have 

 been in charge of J. E. Whelchel, expert 

 special agent of the division of manufac- 

 tures, and have been prepared in coopera- 

 tion with the Forest Service. Through the 

 same cooperative arrangement between the 

 Forest Service and the Census Bureau an- 

 nual statistics are published relating to the 

 group of lumber and timber industries. 



LUMBER 



The lumber cut in the United States dur- 

 ing the calendar year 1909 was 44.585 million 

 feet, board measure, as against 33,224 mil- 

 lion feet in 1908, and 40,256 million feet in 

 1907. This was an increase of 34.2 per cent, 

 over 1908, and of 10.8 per cent, over 1907. 

 The output of lath and shingles during 1909 

 was 3,712 million and 14,945 million, respec- 

 tively. The increase in the production of 

 lath in 1909 over 1908 was 24.3 per cent, and 

 over 1907 1.3 per cent., while the correspond- 

 ing increases for shingles were 23.4 per cent, 

 and 26.4 per cent. 



The relatively large increase in the num- 

 ber of mills reporting for 1909, together with 

 the increase in the cut for that year, was 

 largely due to the fact that the field force 

 of the Census Bureau, which was engaged in 

 gathering statistics of all branches of manu- 

 facture throughout the United States, se- 

 cured returns from practically every sawmill 

 in operation during the whole or any part 

 of 1909, without regard to its size, and in 

 this way there have been included many 



small mills not covered by the mail census 

 in the preceding years. 



Yellow pine, including the several species, 

 longleaf, shortleaf, loblolly, Cuban, etc., pro- 

 duced in the coast states from Virginia to 

 Texas, and in Arkansas and Oklahoma, 

 maintains a growing predominance in the 

 total cut. The total output of these com- 

 prised 44.3 per cent of the total in 1907, 45.3 

 per cent, in 1908, and 49.5 per cent., or over 

 twenty-two billion feet in 1909. The returns 

 show nearly double the number of mills in 

 the yellow pine states as compared with 1908, 

 a result due probably to reaching the small 

 mills in remote localities by means of the 

 personal canvass of the general census. 



The limited output of mills of this class 

 and size, however, is almost without _ ex- 

 ception consumed in the immediate vicinity 

 of its manufacture, and hence exerts little or 

 no influence on supply and prices in the 

 general lumber market of the country. 



The proportion of the total lumber cut by 

 New England and New York declined from 

 9 per cent, in 1907 and 9.6 in 1908 to 7.5 in 

 1909, spruce and white pine still occupying 

 the first place in this region. The Lake 

 states also continue to decline in relative 

 importance. They furnished i3-6 per cent, 

 of the total cut in 1907, 13.2 in 1908, and 12.3 

 in 1909. 



The output of the Pacific coast states was 

 28.3 per cent, larger than in 1908 and 2.2 

 per cent, larger than in 1907, but the propor- 

 tion to the total was less than in either of 

 the two preceding years, being 15.5 as against 

 16.2 in 1908, and 16.8 in 1907. Douglas^ fir 

 is the leading timber tree in this region, 

 being nearly four-fifths of the product of 

 Oregon and Washington. Redwood _ forms 

 nearly half of the production of California. 



Of the total production of lumber in 1909, 

 softwoods supplied 33.875 million feet, of 76 

 per cent., while hardwoods contributed 10,- 

 693 million feet, or 24 per cent. Softwoods 

 contributed i per cent, less of the total pro- 

 duction in T909 than in 1908 and 1007, in 

 each of which years they formed ^^ per cent. 

 of the total. 



The species which produced over three per 

 cent, of the total cut in 1909 were yellow 

 pine, which has a long lead, with 36.5 oer 

 cent; Douglas fir, 10.9 per cent.; white 

 pine, 8.8 per cent.; oak, 10 per cent.; hem- 

 lock, 6.8 per cent. ; spruce, 3.Q per cent., and 

 western pine, 3.4 per cent. The states con- 

 tributing over one billion feet of the total 

 production in 1909, in the order of produc- 



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