FOREST COMMISSIONERS REPORT. 73 



ANNUAL CUT. 



The annual cut of paper birch in the Northeast averages 

 about 80.000 cords, or approximately 32,000,000 board feet. The 

 cut has increased but little in recent years, and it is probable that 

 it will not greatly increase. The wood supplies small mills for 

 the most part, and many of them use no other .species ; even the 

 largest mills .seldom use more than 10,000 or 12,000 cords per 

 year. A number of woodworking industries of the Northeast 

 use practically nothing but paper birch, and several others use 

 it almost exclu.sively. It is made into spools, shoe pegs, shoe 

 shanks, toothpicks, dowels, various wood novelties, and a wide 

 variety of miscellaneous articles. 



SPOOL INDUSTRY'. 



The spool industry is by far the most important of the indus- 

 tries dependent upon paper birch. It uses annually about 43,000 

 cords, or more than half of the total cut of birch. Spool mills 

 are located throughout the birch region, but the industry may 

 be said to center in the valleys of the Piscataquis and Penobscot 

 rivers in central Maine, where the largest mills are located, and 

 where the birch is used almost entirely for this purpose. For 

 spool manufacture the wood nuist be sound and free from red 

 heart, coar.se knots, mildew, stain, or pith. This means, of 

 course, that only the best of the birch can be utilized and that 

 there is a large waste caused by these defects. This waste is 

 used mainly for fuel, while the slabs and edgings are frequently 

 sold for cord wood to suppl}' city markets, and bring from $3 

 lo $4.50 per cord on the cars. 



The various steps involved in the manufacture of the spools 

 from the round log to the finished product are, briefly, as fol- 

 lows: The green logs are brought to the mill during the fall 

 or winter in 4-foot lengths and are first sawed lengthwise into 

 bars, or "squares." These bars arc made 4 feet long whenever 

 possible and are square in cross section, of various sizes, depend- 

 ing on the size of the spool desired. The bars must all be sawed 

 out before the ist of June, preferably before the ist of May, 

 in order to prevent staining. Round logs with the bark on 

 begin to stain as soon as warm weather sets in, usually about 

 the middle of May. By the middle of June 3-foot bolts are 

 usually stained throughout their entire length, and by the 1st 



