FOREST SERVICE. 415 



OFFICE OP WOOD UTILIZATION. 



Correlatod with the Forest Products Laboratory is tlie Office of 

 Wood Utihzation, with headc^uarters in Chicago. Its work also is 

 investigative, but by statistical rather than by experimental processes. 

 It gatliers data to show where, why, and in what quantity wood is 

 wasted in the industries, and endeavors to find means for reducing 

 this waste. It studies the wood-using intUistries of cities and States, 

 learns their requirements, and aids them to find cheap and abundant 

 woods in place of scarce and costly ones. It is also gathering a record 

 of wholesale lumber prices at the mills and in the principal distributing 

 markets. These make it possible to compare lumber prices in dilfer- 

 ent regions and markets, and to determine in a broad way the influences 

 which may be operating to raise, lower, or hold steady the prices of 

 lumber. 



The Office of Wood Utilization was transferred from Washington 

 to Chicago October 1, 1909. The advantages of this transfer are 

 obvious. Chicago is the headquarters of seventeen important lumber- 

 ing and wood-using associations, many of them national in scope. 

 It is largely through these associations that progress toward better 

 use of wood must be made, and with some or these associations the 

 service is cooperating on one or more lines of investigation, while 

 from all of them it obtains information and suggestions. Again, the 

 lumber trade and lumber requirements of Chicago are so diversified 

 that probably no other city affords equal opportunities for securing 

 data. Every line of wood-consuming industry is represented in the 

 cit}^, so that immediate information upon the processes of any kind of 

 wood manufacture can be readily secured. Furthermore, Chicago 

 is believed to be the greatest lumber market in the world. Approxi- 

 mately 6 per cent of the total cut of all the mills of the country is 

 handled by the Chicago trade, and about 300,000,000 feet of lumber 

 is constantly on pile in the city j^ards. More lumbermen visit Chicago 

 each year than any other city. Chicago is also the publication head- 

 quarters of three of the foremost lumber-trade journals and of a num- 

 ber of publications of afhliated industries, and practically all of the 

 important trade journals are represented in that city. All of these 

 considerations make Chicago the most advantageous point in the 

 country for the Office of Wood Utilization. 



In the Office of Wood Utilization continuous investigations were 

 possible through the larger part of the year. Among other questions 

 of practical interest to the lumbermen which were taken up is that of 

 the manufacture and marketing of odd lengths of lumber in the vari- 

 ous producing regions. This was studied in the yellow-pine region 

 of the South and in the Douglas-fir region of the Northwest. It 

 was found that on the Pacific coast 2.07 ])er cent and in the South 

 1.21 per cent more lumber could be i)roduced from the raw j^roduct 

 by the maiuifacture of odd lengths. Another study imder way is 

 that of pencil woods. A number of National Forest woods which, 

 from their ])hysical propcirties, seem suitable substitutes for the 

 southern junipers, and some other woods not found in the National 

 l'\)rests, arc now under trial by ])encil manufacturers. If any of 

 these woods prove to bo suited to the purpose, a market will be 

 f(^und for heretofore little used National Forest woods, and manufac- 

 turers will be given a new source of sui)ply. 



