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Pennsylvania s V^ood Industries 



Editor's Note 



Four yeai-s ago the United States Forest Service began the study of wood-using industries state by state, to cover 

 the whole country. The first state completed was Massachusetts, the second North Carolina, and the work has gone 

 forward until all of the states have been covered by field work, and the results in most of them have been published. 

 In many states the investigation was cooperative, the government compiling the figures and writing the rep6rts, and 

 the states, or some commercial organization or trade paper, printing the bulletins. The report from Pennsylvania has 

 been printed and the results are summarized in the accompanying review. Four states remain to be published, West 

 Virginia, New Jersey, Indiana, and Georgia. The field work in these is complete and the publications may be expected 



The Department of Forestry of Pennsylvania has published bulletin 

 6, dealing with industries in that state which use wood as raw mate- 

 rial in manufacturing. Though published by the state of Pennsyl- 

 vania, the compilation of the work was done by the United States 

 Forest Service. The office of Industrial Investigations, under O. T. 

 Swan, had charge, and Boger E. Simmons conducted the field work 

 and wrote the report. Assistants were furnished by Robert S. Conklin, 

 toramissioner of forestry in Pennsylvania. It is thus apparent that 

 the preparation of the work has been in competent hands. 



The result is highly satisfactory. It belongs to the series of state 

 woods-using reports which have been published at intervals during the 

 past four years. It is the largest of those reports, being a book of 

 more than two hundred pages, and replete with details of woods, 

 prices, methods of manufacture, quantities of wood consumed annually 

 in the state for various purposes, sources of the material, and many 

 other matters of importance for persons who have occasion to investi- 

 gate the use of wood for manufacturing purposes. The bulletin is 

 illustrated with half-tone pictures and with drawings of various fea- 

 tures of woodworking. It is presumed that copies of the report may 

 be procured from the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry at Harris- 

 burg, and from the Forest Service, Washington, D. C. ; but informa- 

 tion is not at hand whether copies will be distributed free or at a 

 price. It is worth a price to those who are in the wood-manufacturing 

 business. 



Kinds of Woods Used 



The factories of Pennsylvania use seventy-two kinds of wood, ac- 

 cording to the table which gives a summary for the whole state. An 

 examination of the list, however, reveals the fact that the claim of 

 seventy-two woods is too modest, if each species be counted as a 

 different wood. The whole number will not fall much short of twice 

 seventy-two, since from two to six species are occasionally grouped 

 under a single name. 



White pine leads all other woods in quantity used, amounting to 

 more than fourteen per cent of the whole, at an average price of 

 $31.55 a thousand feet, delivered at the factories. Shortleaf pine 

 is second in quantity, longleaf pine third. These three pines make up 

 more than one-third of the total quantity of wood used in the state. 



White ash leads the hardwoods, and red oak is second, followed in 

 order by yellow poplar, sugar maple, chestnut, beech, red gum, and 

 bassvfood. The total demand for hardwoods and softwoods respec- 

 tively is nearly equal, but the latter are a little ahead. The total of 

 woods of all kinds going to factories during the year covered by the 

 report was 1,114,219,650 feet. 



Of the seventy-two woods in use, sixteen are of foreign origin. 

 Though more than one-fifth of the species come from other countries, 

 the total quantity of foreign material does not amount to one per cent 

 of the whole. More Spanish cedar is used than any other imported 

 wood, and mahogany is second. 



Only six of the seventy-two woods were grown wholly in the state. 

 They were aspen, mountain laurel, locust, sassafras, sumach, and 

 black willow. These are all of minor importance, their combined 

 totals amounting to little more than half a million feet. Forty of 

 the woods were in part state grown, and three others are found native 

 in Pennsylvania, though they appear not to have gone to the factories 

 from that state, but came from elsewhere. 



A little more than twenty-eight per cent of all the wood reported 

 for factory use in Pennsylvania was state grown, the quantity being 

 313,683,632 feet against 800,356,018 shipped in from outside regions. 

 Cost of the Material 



The total cost of the wood delivered annually at Pennsylvania fac- 



tories is given at $32,483,227. The average price paid per thousand 

 feet is $29.15. The averages in Illinois, Ohio, and New York were 

 respectively $28.76, $30.47, and $30.76. The average of these three 

 states is very nearly that of Pennsylvania. 



The woods used in Pennsylvania vary remarkably in price. The 

 most costly on the list is weichsel at $540 per thousand feet. This 

 material is bought by weight, but it is reduced to board measure in 

 calculating the price. Other costly woods are rosewood $462.89, 

 French briar $351.34, Circassian walnut $340.45, boxwood $298.90, 

 eucalyptus $260, satinwood $200, sarbo $200, teak $191.95, and ebony 

 $188.18. 



Black willow is the cheapest wood reported, at $13, and is followed 

 by aspen at $15. Others below twenty dollars are scrub pine, black 

 gum, pitch pine, beech, and loblolly pine. In 1912 the sawmill output 

 of lumber in Pennsylvania was 992,180,000 feet. 



The Industries 

 According to the classification made by the Forest Service, there are 

 fifty-five separate wood-using industries in the United States. Penn- 

 sylvania has fifty of them, a number which is not equaled by any 

 other slate. The smallest separate industry in Pennsylvania is cred- 

 ited with the use of 95,945 feet of wood a year. The industry pro- 

 duces manual training supplies, and pays an average price of $66.44 

 a thousand feet for the wood purchased. The largest industry turns 

 out planing mill products, uses yearly 281,717,600 feet, and pays 

 $33.46 a thousand for it. Following are the ten largest wood-using 

 industries in the state, with the annual amount of lumber used by 



Planing mill products 281,717,600 



Boxes and crates 273,904,094 



Cars 228,380,900 



Furniture 58,995,170 



Chairs 33,117,000 



Vehicles 31,801.509 



Ships and boats 26.716,000 



Caskets and coffins 13,982,500 



Mine equipment 11,948,897 



Fixtures 11,888,220 



These ten industries account for more than four-fifths of all the 

 wood demanded by factories in Pennsylvania. This state leads all 

 the other states in the use of mine equipment. The coal mines are 

 highly developed, and include both hard and soft coal. There are 

 fifteen industries which use less than one million feet of wood annu- 

 ally. The highest average price for all woods bought is paid by the 

 makers of tobacco pipes, $165.49, and the lowest price, $14, is paid 

 by excelsior mUls. 



There are in Pennsylvania 3,432 factories which make wood com- 

 modities. These figures do not include sawmills producing rough 

 lumber. No state surpasses Pennsylvania in the number of wood- 

 consuming factories, though several exceed it in the quantity of wood 

 used. 



The Uses of Wood 



The Pennsylvania report possesses special value on account of the 

 thoroughness with which the uses of the various woods have been 

 worked out. It is safe to say that no other book published in America 

 is so complete, as far as the woods which are considered in this report 

 are concerned. All of the common woods of the United States are 

 included, and several from foreign countries. There is, however, a 

 pretty large number of woods which grow in this country that are 

 not considered in the Pennsylvania report, because they are not used 

 in that state. 



Take handles as an example of the details with which the use of 

 wood in the separate industries is presented. Instead of treating 

 handles as if they consist of a single article, forty different kinds of 



