HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



^he Commercial Hickories 



The latest bulletin issued by the Forest 

 Service at Washington, Bulletin 80, under the 

 above caption, is compiled by A. T. Boisen, 

 Forest Assistant, and J. A. Newlin, Engineer 

 of Timber Tests. This is undoubtedly one 

 of the most instructive and practically val- 

 uable publications of recent date issued by 

 this department, which has gotten out a vast 

 number of other bulletins treating of various 

 other trees along somewhat similar lines. The 

 bulletin contains upwards of seventy pages 

 and takes up the entire subject of commercial 

 hickories from every possible point of interest. 

 It is well illustrated with photographs of 

 numerous stands of hickory, illustrating the 

 possibilities of regeneration by natural means, 

 .ind also contains botanical cuts, which will 

 be found instructive to even the ordinary 

 lumberman. 



The information is divided under various 

 sub-heads, starting with the economic im- 

 portance of the species. Under this are 

 grouped figures showing the annual consump- 

 tion and also information relative to the 

 various uses of hickory and ending with data 

 on the export. The second section takes up in 

 ■ letail the present supply and gives in a meas- 

 ure the ownership of various tracts of im- 

 portance. Data relative to lumbering follows, 

 in which are grouped the prevailing stimipage 

 prices, log rules and figures relative to waste. 

 One of the most interesting sections of the 

 bulletin is that devoted to the tree itself, 

 showing its forms, the various species, both 

 pecan and true hickory, the range of distribu- 

 tion, soil, moisture and light requirements and 

 also its powers of life, reproduction and 

 growth. The information embodied under the 

 chapter treating of volume and yield will be 

 found of great practical value, as will also 

 the following chapter, which takes up the 

 mechanical properties of the wood. Under 

 this heading the results of various tests are 

 tabulated, together with numerous factors af- 

 fecting the strength of the wood. Hickory 

 is compared here with numerous other woods, 

 and then is taken up the possible future sup- 

 ply, under which various methods for per- 

 petuating the visible supply are suggested. 

 These methods are grouped under economic 

 means and sylvicultural means, the distinction 

 being that by the first method the conserva- 

 tion of the tree is attempted merely by econ- 

 omizing in waste and by restricting the use 

 of hickory only to such utilization as abso- 

 lutely require the use of this wood. Sylvicul- 

 tural means signify actual working of tracts 

 along definite sylvicultural lines to provide 

 for future reproduction. 



Under the chapter dealing-with the economic 

 importance of the tree, it is interesting to 

 note that 1908 figures show that 200,000,000 

 bopid feet of hickory were cut during that 

 year and actually sold as lumber, while about 

 130,000,000 more were worked into such prod- 

 ucts as spokes, rims and various other arti- 

 cles. Including, however, the waste in tlje 



woods and mills, the total consumption 

 for that year was not less than 450,000,000 

 feet. Of the industries using hickory, tho 

 vehicle factories take about sixty-five per 

 cent of the total cut, using the wood for such 

 purposes as spokes, rims, poles, etc. While 

 oak, ash and acacia are substituted in Kurope 

 for some of these purposes, the vehicles pro- 

 duced are admittedly inferior and the present 

 high standard of American manufacture would 

 not permit of such substitution. The tool 

 htndle industry consumes annually about SO,- 

 000 cords or ten per cent of the total cut, 

 which goes into handles for axes, picks, 

 hatchets and numerous other similar articles. 

 The use of other woods for this purpose, such 

 as hai'd maple and white oak, is limited and 

 local. About eight per cent of the total cut 

 of hickory goes to the agricultural implement 

 houses. Another use, which is probably not 

 as well known as those previously mentioned, is 

 for sucker rods in oil wells. These rods de- 

 mand clear stock up to thirty-five feet long, 

 and hickory alone is adapted to the peculiar 

 requirements. These industries consume about 

 ninety-five per cent of the total, the other five 

 per cent going to the special products, such 

 as skewers, golf sticks, ladder rung.";, various 

 pins, etc. It is estimated that the cut for 

 fuel has amounted to as much as 1,000,000 

 cords, hickory being of course the best fuel 

 wood produced in this country. While a largo 

 quantity of the products manufactured in 

 the United States are consumed locally, a good 

 percentage is shipped abroad annually in the 

 form of rims, spokes, handles, etc. 



The bulletin states that hickory once grew 

 in commercial quantities from Connecticut, 

 New York and southern Michigan south to 

 Florida and west to Illinois, Missouri, Okla- 

 homa and eastern Texas, forming in this re- 

 gion about one-fortieth of the total hardwood 

 stand. The original supply i.s now approach- 

 ing exhaustion, some of the larger companies 

 are already making a second cut and in the 

 course of a few years the conditions now exist' 

 ing in southern Indiana and Ohio wUl be 

 duplicated in the South, from whepce prac- 

 tically all the hickory 'is now shipped. The 

 existing stands of hickory are at present in 

 small holdings mainly, and as a rule are the 

 property of the farmers, being found in their 

 so-called woodlots. There are still a few 

 large holdings in the lower Mississippi valley, 

 and southern Appalachians, though these hold- 

 ings are not valuable chiefly for the hickory. 



The bulk of the hickory of commer(!e is cut 

 either by small portable mills sawiug only 

 hickory and oak and moving from place to 

 place as the supply is exhausted, or by farm- 

 ers and contractors, who rive out the billets 

 in the woods and ship them to central station- 

 ary mills. The portable mill commonly cuts 

 material for rims, poles and shafts, cutting 

 first into rough strips to be shipped to the 

 larger mills for finishing, hence there is an 

 unusual expense item attributed to logging 



and milling, as tho wood is heavy, hard to 

 handle, besides cutting with a good deal of 

 waste. Furthermore, rough stock must be 

 sliipped green, necessitating heavy freight 

 iiills. 



Tlie value of hickory, next to black walnut, 

 is the highest of any American wood, a fact 

 due to the great cost of lumbering as well 

 .■13 to the large amount of special stock out. 

 The stumpage prices are, however, still com- 

 jiaratively low, the existing price in the South 

 ranging from two to five dollars; in Ohio from 

 fifteen to twenty-five dollars, and in Pennsyl- 

 \ania, Maryland and Virginia, fifteen to 

 Ihirty-five dollars. 



In view of the high value of tho wood, tho 

 apparent loss both in the woods and in the 

 mill seems appalling, it being conservatively 

 estimated at forty per cent of the total cut. The 

 wood's waste can be charged chiefly to un- 

 necessary restrictions against heartwood and 

 bjrd-i)ecked wood, such waste being particularly 

 great where spoke billets are rived out in the 

 woods. Only white billets are taken, the red 

 ones bringing a little more than half as much 

 as the others. Further, the wood from the 

 upper part of the tree is discriminated against 

 in favor of that from the lower cut. At the 

 mill there is a large unavoidable waste due 

 to the large number of special products manu- 

 factured and here also the element of heart- 

 wood and bird-pecked material is directly re- 

 sponsible for the loss of a good deal of val- 

 uable stock. These causes, together with such 

 practices as cutting various products unneces- 

 sarily long and also with the unnecessary de- 

 struction of young growth in lumbering and 

 grading, will seriously affect the future supply. 



Under the chapter dealing with volume and 

 yield, the results of exhaustive investigation 

 are tabulated under various tables, which show 

 at a glance the cubical contents of any sized 

 tree of any height and also determine the 

 volume in cubic feet of cordwood and the 

 iisable volume per cent of the entire tree. 

 Besides this the average merchantable lengtTi 

 of various sized trees are given and also the 

 proportion of heart, sapwood and bark of 

 hickories of different diameters, of virgin tim- 

 ber and second growth, the taper of stems, a^d 

 log rules and volume tables covering every 

 possible question that might arise. The tables 

 were compiled after accurately measuring a 

 large number of trees for each one and have 

 every indication of accuracy. 



The chapter treating of the technical quali- 

 ties of the wood is of gi'eat importance. The 

 various tests were applied to trees taken from 

 four different localities and seven species, 

 from the Mississippi delta region, from Ohio, 

 West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The tests 

 were all performed on regulation, well-known 

 ((■sting apparatus, but were of probably more 

 exhaustive and reliable a character than the 

 a\erage timber test. Such points as specific 

 gravity, weights per cubic foot, fiber stress 



