FOREST commissioner's REPORT. yy 



for other purposes, and sells for from $15 to $25 per cord at 

 the mill. The logs are first cut into 2-foot bolts, peeled, steamed 

 slightly to take out the frost, and then run through a veneer 

 machine, which cuts oflf a thin veneer the length and thickness 

 of the toothpick. From these veneers the toothpicks are auto- 

 matically cut, thoroughly dried, and sometimes polished. 



Dowels, toys and novelties, and various miscellaneous articles, 

 such as clothespins, hairpin boxes, bobbins, and shuttles, con- 

 sume annually about 23,000 cords of paper birch. These in- 

 dustries all differ considerably from those previously described 

 in that they use considerable quantities of other woods than 

 paper birch. Chief among these are yellow birch, sugar maple, 

 and beech. These articles can also in many cases be made of 

 an inferior grade of birch. A small per cent of red heart is 

 usually allowed in most dowels, and cheap toys and novelties are 

 not infrequently made entirely from red heart and knotty wood 

 which could not be used for any other purpose. This fact is 

 sometimes taken advantage of by combining spool and novelty 

 mills, so that the novclt}" mill can be largely supplied by the 

 waste from the spool mill. 



PRINCIPAL, MARKETS. 



The principal market for paper birch and its products is in 

 this country, although there is some export business. The 

 spools are mainly manufactured near the source of the timber 

 supply and are then shipped to the thread mills in various parts 

 of the country, chiefly to Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jer- 

 sey, and, to some extent, to California. 



The shipment of spool bars to Scotland is, however, an im- 

 portant part of the trade and these shipments now amount an- 

 nually to about 4,000,000 board feet. Scotland has always been 

 a heavy consumer of birch for spools, and when the immediately 

 available supply of European birch (Bctida albo) began to fail, 

 the manufacturers turned to this country to supply their de- 

 mands. The first shipment of bars abroad was made to Scot- 

 land in 1882 from Bangor, Me., and since then shipments have 

 continued, but with considerable fluctuation. The largest ship- 

 ments were made in the latter part of the nineties and in one 

 year ran as high as 13.000,000 board feet. Recently they have 

 been decreasing until they now amount to only 3.000.000 or 



