THE STORY OF HEMLOCK 



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removed ; and the result is being felt, tons of paper pulp are made of this 



There is no second growth, and the wood yearly. It is next to the largest 



pulpwood cutter is the first person to in production, spruce alone rating above 



feel this loss, because he takes trees it. The pulp made from hemlock is 



which are smaller than the lumberman fourteen per cent of the total output. 



can use. The yield, however, is not increasing. 



Two and a half million cross-ties are As in the case of lumber, the maximum 



hemlock's annual contribution to the seems to have been reached, and for the 

 country's railroad con- 



struction. Like pulp- 

 wood, these are usually 

 cut from timber of 

 medium size. 



Stock coopers use 

 ten million hemlock 

 staves yearly in their 

 products. Most of 

 these are for cheap 

 kegs or small berries, 

 but a higher class of 

 cooperage demands 

 some of this wood for 

 pails, buckets, and 

 tubs. 



Hemlock timber has 

 a reasonable share of 

 shortcomings. Manv 

 trunks are wind- 

 shaken ; ice cracks 

 are numerous in old 

 specimens ; and multi- 

 tudes of hard knots 

 are characteristic of 

 the lumber. Yet large 

 trunks contain a fair 

 proportion of clear 

 wood suitable for 

 high-class work, such 

 as doors, window- 

 frames, and flooring. 

 It has low rating as a 

 figured wood, nor is 

 it praised on account 

 of pleasing color; yet 

 select stock shows 

 agreeable grain form- 

 ed by the arrangement of the annual 

 rings of growth ; and the slightly pinkish 

 tint is delicate and pleasing. 



ITS 5H.\RK OF PRODUCTION. 



Though hemlock supplies about si> 



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From Cl"tti.\g to Railroad. 



This hemlock bark has been brought down the mountain on sleds to 

 the loading platform on the railroad spur, the scene being in Nortli 

 Carolina. 



same reason — diminishing resources of 

 raw material. 



The markets opened their doors to 

 hemlock only gradually. The wood's 

 early uses were few and small. Build- 

 ers of ships and boats seem to have been 



X 



per cent of all the lumber production of the first to give it a place. That was at 

 the Lnited States, it fills other impor- a time when white pine was plentiful 

 tant places in the list of the country's in the North and East. No general de- 

 resources. More than half a million mand for hemlock was found until 



