FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 75 



disks which are screwed on to the body piece and gkied. The 

 spool is then completed by being turned on a lathe and is 

 smoothed and polished with sandpaper. The largest of these 

 three-piece spools hold 12,000 yards of thread, and between 

 them and the smallest ones, that hold only 20 yards, there is 

 every possible gradation in size and shape. 



Many substitutes for paper birch have been tried in the man- 

 ufacture of spools, but so far none has proved wholly success- 

 ful. Pulp is used to some extent, particularly with large spools, 

 which have also been made with a body of pine and with pulp 

 heads. Sawdust consolidated by hydraulic pressure has been 

 tried, but it is very heavy and is unsatisfactory in other respects. 

 Other woods have been tried, but all have been found wanting 

 as compared with paper birch ; they are too hard, or too soft, 

 or do not turn well. Yellow birch is the only species which has 

 met with any favor. It is now used to some extent by a num- 

 ber of mills and there is no distinction on the market between 

 the spools from the two species. Yellow birch is considerably 

 the harder of the two woods, and to get the best results the 

 method of manufacture must differ slightly from that for paper 

 birch. This fact is not always appreciated by the mill men and 

 probably accounts for much of the prejudice they have against 

 yellow birch. When properly handled it seems to give good 

 results, particularly the second-growth material, locally knowai 

 as "silver birch." The southern hardwoods have not been tried 

 extensively as yet. and it is possible that such species as black 

 gum, red gum, and yellow poplar may prove to be fairly satis- 

 factory sub.stitutes. 



SII0I-: PEG AND SIIOK SlIAXK IMn STRN'. 



The next most important use for paper ijircli after the spool 

 industry is for the manufacture of shoe pegs and shoe shanks. 

 This industry, which uses about 11,000 cords of paper birch 

 annually, is confined entirely to the northeastern United States 

 and, except for a small amount of yellow birch, uses paper birch 

 exclusively. 



Shoe pegs are made in two distinct ways, 'i'he more usual 

 method is to cut the bolts into small blocks, which are in turn 

 split uj) into ])egs. The other method is to cut the bolts into 

 peg "ribbons." These are manufactured at only two places in 



