HARDWOOD RECORD 



29 



hundred to four hundred feet of hickory per acre is found upon 

 tracts of considerable size, it is fully up to the lumbermen's expecta- 

 tion. Neither does hickory grow like many other commercial tim- 

 bers, nor can it be cut and marketed in the same manner. It is a 

 peculiar wood in several respects — in growth, properties, uses and 

 marketing. 



Hickory's combination of strength, toughness and elasticity has 

 made it the world 's foremost wood for certain specific purposes. 

 It offers supreme resistance to strains, twists and shocks. The 

 superior place held in many countries by axes of American manu- 

 facture is due as much to the hickory handle as to the steel in the 

 bit. The same may be said about American hammers, sledges, cant- 

 hooks and other tools. Hickory has also added to the enviable reputa- 

 tion of American harvesting machinery the world over. While other 

 woods are fairly satisfactory for heavy vehicles where strength is the 

 chief requisite, for light, graceful, springy carriages this wood is 

 unequalled. It goes into wheels, poles, shafts, spring-bars and other 

 parts. 



Exacting demands are made on this wood from other quarters. 

 With the possible exception of white ash, no satisfactory substitute 

 for it has ever been found for sucker-rods used in pumping oU wells. 

 Hickory will sustain nearly as much load on a longitudinal puU as a 

 rod of iron of the same size, and it weighs less than half as much. 

 Hickory is the preferable material for skewers as it imparts no taste, 

 and will not break or splinter when thrust into meat. However, 

 maple, beech, birch and persimmon are used for this purpose to some 

 extent. Hickory, because of its strength and toughness, is the 

 favorite material for picker sticks, although other woods are used 

 to some extent for this purpose. 



The principal demand for hickory comes from vehicle manufac- 

 turers and handle makers, and hickory manufacturers depend largely 

 upon this demand for their market. 



The Forest Service report says that much hickory is employed for 

 purposes which might be supplied by cheaper and more abundant 

 woods, and contends that these inferior uses are wrong uses, and that 

 material suitable for highly specialized purposes should not be wasted 

 in common and ordinary places, but reserved for uses which no other 

 wood can serve so well. 



In the specific analysis of the hickory uses accompanying the 

 pamphlet, based on the reports referred to, it is shown that in the. 

 territory where hickory is now most abundant, which includes the 

 states of Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, southeastern Missouri, Ten- 

 nessee, Louisiana and Mississippi, that 68 per cent of the product is 

 used rightly, 6.4 per cent wrongly, 15.7 per cent doubtfully, and 9.9 

 per cent partially right, partially wrong and partially doubtful. 



In the hickory section of the country where hickory is now com- 

 paratively scant, which involves Missouri, except the southeastern 

 portion, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina. Penn- 

 sylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, the report indicates that 4S.7 

 per cent is rightly used; 21.3 per cent wrongly used; 16.7 per cent 

 doubtfully used, and 13.3 per cent partially right, partially doubtful, 

 and partially wrongly employed. 



A review of some of the past and present uses of hickory for 

 purposes other than vehicles, handles, sucker-rods, skewers and parts 

 of agricultural and textile machinery, which are and should he the 

 chief uses, wUl show both economy and waste to a greater extent 

 than will the history of any other wood. The writer alleges that 

 what at the present time would be folly and waste, was not neces- 

 sarily so in the past. Hickory withes — sprouts from two to five 

 years old, three to ten feet long, and from one-fourth inch to an inch 

 in diameter at the ground — have been cut in countless millions, and 

 everyone was a young hickory tree. This growth was destroyed not 

 only by the hoop-pole cutter, but by every farmer for centuries past 

 who has used this convenient growth for mending gates, fences, 

 wagons and sleds, and with it has tied everything from a broken 

 fence panel to a fodder shock. Nowadays nails and wire have been 

 substituted for withes in most farm repair work. A thousand hick- 

 ory hoop-poles in the past hare been sold as low as $1.50 — a thousand 

 promising young hickories for $1.50 — because no one had then learned 

 that when mature the tree could be worked into a thousand hoops 

 equally as good. 



In some parts of Pennsylvania and in other states, hickory goes into 

 mines as posts. There are perhaps fifty kinds of forest trees in that 

 region that are as good as hickory for mine timbers; many of them 

 better, for hickory is not an enduring wood in damp places. The wood 

 is also variously employed in many localities for bridges, floors, 

 fences, piling and culverts, railroad ties, etc., which are wrong uses 

 of this splendid wood. 



The statistics collected during the investigation show that 31,000 

 cords, or approximately 22,000,000 feet of hickory, are annually de- 

 manded by the 473 meat packing establishments in the United States 

 for smoking meats. This does not include what farmers use for 

 their own smoke-houses, which probably is as much more. More 

 than twenty-five different kinds of other woods are listed as suitable 

 for smoking meats, but all of them together do not amount to the 

 quantity of hickory employed. Nearly all reports state that hickory 

 is more satisfactory than any other wood for this purpose, as it emits 

 a maximum of smoke with no increase of heat, imparts a pleasing 

 flavor to the meat and gives it a bright, clear color that is uniform 

 over the entire surface. It burns slowly and cures the meat 

 thoroughly, and it smokes the meat with a minimum amount of 

 shrinkage. 



In order to satisfy the United States regulations restricting the 

 amount of shrinkage, many packers sprinkle their wood with saw- 

 dust from mahogany, hemlock, cedar and other hard and soft woods. 

 The sawdust increases the amount of smoke with no increase in 

 shrinkage, and at the same time prevents particles from arising and 

 injuring the color and taste of the meats. 'The packers prefer split 

 cord-wood, four-feet lengths and seasoned from three months to three 

 years. The table accompanying the report shows that 31,200 cords of 

 hickory are employed annually for this purpose and 22,155 cords of 

 wood from apple, ash, beech, California white oak, chestnut, cotton- 

 wood and elm, maple, miscellaneous varieties of oak, western alder 

 and other woods. 



The writer says that it seems unreasonable to expect packers located 

 near hickory sources of supply to substitute inferior woods, and 

 further states that no one knows how much hickory is consumed for 

 fuel. An estimate places the amount at one million cords annually, 

 which is regarded as probably too high, but if ilot, it exceeds in 

 quantity the combined demand for hickory for all other purposes. 

 More than five thousand mills were cutting hickory lumber in the 

 United States in 1908, and the output approximated 200,000,000 feet. 



It is necessary to distinguish clearly between hickory lumber and 

 other forms of the wood. Gear-woods, rims and many other com- 

 modities may or may not pass through a sawmill. If they do not, 

 they are not listed by the census as lumber, and the 200,000,000 feet 

 reported cut for 1908 did not therefore include aU the hickory taken 

 from the forests that year. 



A recent investigation found 131,000,000 feet of hickory produc- 

 tion in apparent excess of what the census reported. This was cut 

 by small dimension mills into strips, billets, and various forms of 

 vehicle and special stock. Much hickory is split into bUlets that 

 never goes into a sawmill or dimension mill, as lathes and other 

 machines finish the product. 



Hickory is cut by sawmills and dimension mills of all kinds from 

 large to small. The sawmill cuts the logs into lumber, which later 

 is often ripped into dimension stock. The dimension mills cut the 

 logs or bolts directly into pole, shaft, and rim-strips, spoke-bUlets, 

 handle-billets, and other rough dimension stock. Many of the mills 

 are portable and operate on small bodies of timber, or in com- 

 munities where scattered trees may be brought to a single point in 

 sufiicient quantity to warrant the placing of the miU. 



In general practice most of the hickory is cut by small dimension 

 mills. It is contended that owing to the scattered character of 

 hickory growth and the large cost involved in grouping the logs, 

 this product is handled on a very uneconomic basis. There is un- 

 deniably a vast amount of unnecessary waste prevailing in hickory 

 production, as often timber of a character to make long and high- 

 priced lengths, like suckerrod stock, is cut into small pieces for 

 handles or for other purposes. The man making the longer-length 

 product gets more money out of the tree than the man making short- 

 length stock, and therefore can afford to pay more for it. In buying 



