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Profits from Paper Birch 



A serious defect in the wood of paper birch is that known as 

 "red heart," which materially reduces the quality, strength and 

 value of the wood and renders it unfit for spool, shoe peg or 

 toothpick stock of the higher grades; its presence in large quan- 

 tities means heavy loss. Eed heart is not a disease, but is simply 

 the natural heartwood which forms as the trees grow old. The 

 age at which it appears varies greatly and is considerably influ- 

 enced by the locality of growth. In favorable places trees that 

 have grown from seed are usually five or six inches in diameter 

 and upward of fifty years old before heartwood begins to form. 

 Trees that originated as sprouts from stumps begin to develop 

 red heart before they are five inches through. 



After heartwood begins to form it continues to increase in 

 diameter, at first at about the same rate the tree grows, but 

 later more rapidly. Mature trees usually have from two to four 

 inches of sapwood near the base. The higher one goes up the 

 bole of the tree the smaller the heart becomes, until it disappears 

 completely in the upper part. This is, of course, due to the fact 

 that the lower part of the tree is so much older than the upper. 



When red heart first appears it is sound and it may remain 

 so for many years, or again it may begin to decay very soon. In an 

 average stand at maturity it is estimated that from 10 to 15 per 

 cent of the trees are affected by heart rot, and in cases where 

 the trees are past their prime the proportion increases very 

 rapidly. It is this tendency of the heart to unsoundness that is 

 largely responsible for the belief that all of it is deficient in 

 strength and brittle, though, of course, the chief objection to 

 it is the color. 



Eed heart is by far the largest item of waste in factories 

 which make handles and novelties from paper birch, and not 

 much attention has been paid to the possible utilization of such 

 stock until quite recently. It has been found, though, that 

 sound red heart can be turned into handles and novelties and 

 handles which are to be enameled, since in this case the color 

 is CO longer an objection. Some of it is turned into boxes and 

 other cheap turnery, such as cork caps, spools, handles and 

 numerous other articles. It is also employed to some extent for 

 cheap toothpicks, shoe shanks, dowels, package handles, toys, 

 and bushings. 



The state forester of Minnesota, in a recent report, calls 

 attention to the large amounts of paper birch that are going 

 to waste in that state for lack of proper utilization. He says: 

 "To the man who has seen the close utilization of birch in Maine 

 and the New England states in general it seems almost criminal 

 to permit the appalling destruction of this splendid wood through- 

 out the timbered regions of northern Minnesota. Manufacturers 

 of spools, rollers, clothes pins, shoe pegs, toothpicks, toys, wooden- 

 ware, flooring and veneer are paying fancy prices for the poorest 

 grade of birch gleaned from the woods of Maine and New Hamp- 

 shire. Moreover, they are transporting it long distances and are 

 running short of material. For such manufacturing concerns 

 Minnesota offers an attractive and profitable field. There is no 

 good reason why we shouldn't have dozens of factories utilizing 

 birch and giving employment to large numbers of men right here 

 in our own state." 



There is one portion of the paper birch for which there is very 

 little use, and that is the bark. Of course, it is employed to some 

 extent for fancy articles, Such as baskets, picture frames, and 

 numerous other odds-and-ends, but all told the amount thus 

 employed is very small. It was formerly employed by the Indians 

 for canoes, but a birch-bark canoe is somewhat of a novelty now- 

 adays. A suggested use is for the tipping of cigarettes. 



The tipping of cigarettes with cork has come into general 

 practice during the last few years. Ten years ago only gold tips 

 were ordinarily seen, but they are no longer common. Straw, 

 artificial cork, thin veneers of wood and even corn husks have 

 been tried, but none gives the satisfaction of cork. Most cigar- 



ettes are uutipped, but there seems to be an increasing demand 

 for the other kind. The making of cork paper requires the finest 

 grade of cork, which is very expensive. It is cut by rotary knives 

 into thin sheets about five-hundredths of an inch in thickness. 

 It is then pasted onto a paper backing, cut into ribbons half 

 an inch wide, and rolled on reels ready for the automatic tipping 

 machines. The amount of cork paper used last year to tip cigar- 

 ettes would, if spread out in a single layer, cover almost a square 

 mile of territory, and wW worth over half a million dollars. 



Everyone is familiar with the peculiar laminated bark which 

 gives the paper birch its name and has noted how the layers can 

 be separated from each other by proper care, leaving thin sheets 

 of flesh-eolored or whitish bark. These sheets are verv soft, 

 pliable and smooth, except for the short, horizontal lines of 

 lentieels. Being composed largely of cork cells, the layers are 

 waterproof and should prove an excellent substitute for cork 

 paper for tipping cigarettes. The chief difficulty is to devise 

 some practical means of separating the bark into layers at a 

 reasonable cost. Although numerous experiments have been tried, 

 none has proved successful. 



In India and Africa the bark of a great many trees is used 

 for a multitude of purposes, and in nearly every case the primitive 

 method of beating the bark is employed to get it into proper 

 condition. This could not be done to birch bark, but it is possible 

 that some device could be arranged for passing the bark between 

 heavy rollers, with the idea of loosening the layers by crushing 

 the connecting cells. As grown on the tree the outer layers of the 

 bark are slightly longer than the inner on account of the greater 

 circumfereuce, and rolling flat or backward would tend to make 

 the layers slip past each other. Boiling and steaming, both with 

 saturated and superheated steam, have been tried, as well as a 

 combined treatment of steam pressure and vacuum, but the onlv 

 result apparently was the darkening of the bark and ruining it 

 for the purpose intended. If someone could hit upon a plan, he 

 will open a good market for a product which now is valueless. 



E. J. S. 



Traffic Matters Around Memphis 



Lumbermen here who have extended timberland holdings and other 

 interests in Arkansas have won a victory over the Frisco System 

 which sought to advance rates on hardwood shipments from points 

 on its lines in Arkansas and Missouri to destinations in Iowa, 

 Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas, from one to two cents per 

 hundred pounds. The hearing in this case was held at St. Louis 

 before one -of the examiners for the Interstate Commerce Commission 

 and was attended by J. H. Townshend, general manager of the 

 Southern Hardwood Traffic Bureau, and several prominent members of 

 that body, including F. E. Gary of the Baker Lumber Company, and 

 representatives of the Three States Lumber Company, Lee Wilson & 

 Co. and the Chapman Dewey Lumber Company. The railroad with- 

 drew its increased tariffs after the presentation of the testimony of 

 the bureau and did not let the case come to a decision. 



, The report that fhe advance in rates to New Orleans from Memphis, 

 amounting to two cents per hundred pounds, had been suspended until 

 Sept. 30 by the Interstate Commerce Commission was an error. Such 

 a report reached here from Washington, but the Southern Hardwood 

 Traffic Bureau has been officially advised that the advance is held up 

 only three weeks from Aug. 20 or until Sept. 10. 



The Southern Hardwood Traffic Bureau has, on behalf of the 

 Tsehudy Lumber Company and the A. B. Nickey & Sous Lumber 

 Company, filed a petition with the Interstate Commerce Commission 

 asking for lower rates on shipments of Ivmiber and logs over the 

 Missouri & North Arkansas Eailroad to Memphis. It is pointed out 

 that there is a great deal of timber along this road that is sus- 

 ceptible of easy development if a lower rate on log shipments to this 

 city is granted. 



