Tin- Nntiunul Asweintiou of Hox Maiiufncdircrg lias publiHlu'il in 

 bulletin fonii runiplcto lii;iiri>» hIiuwIiii; llie aunuiil use of wood in Ibc 

 UniteU Slatca for Ix>xom. Tbe stutistii'S wero colltvtcd by tbo Foroxt 

 Scrvii-e, tbrouRli the oflioe of Iiiiliistrial ]nveNti);ations which iB in 

 h:irge of O. T. Swan. The bulletin was prepared for the press by 



.1. Nellis of the Forest Sorviee. 



Hex niaken; in the United States use 4,547,973,180 feet of lumber 

 annually, of which softwoods constitute :{,138,'J7«,019 feet, or 09 

 |K'r cent, and hardwoods 1,409,095. Itil feet, or 31 per cent of the 

 total. I'rncticnlly all of the wood u.sed for boxes is the product of the 

 nvmill and therefore forms a part of the annual lumber cut. Based 

 ■i the production in 1912, the last year for which figures are available, 

 1 1.0 per cent of all lumber produced in the United States is converted 

 into boxes. In fact, the manufacture of packing boxes and shooks, 

 crates, crating, fruit and vegetable packages and baskets, is the second 

 largest wood-consuming industry of the United States. The manu- 

 facture of lumber for construction and building purposes, planing 

 mill i>roducts, sash, doors, blinds, and general mill work, is, of course, 

 <lie leading wood-consuming industry, taking over two-thirds of the 

 tiiiual lumber cut. 



The figures on which the bulletin is based were collected state by 

 Niate. Individual reports for thirty states have been published. Re- 

 ports for the remaining states are in manuscript, and the figures have 

 l>een summarized and the totals appear in the table which follows. 

 Partial reports and estimates of the totals for the United States have 

 lieen published from time to time; but the totals from the government 

 figures are made public now for the first time. 



Regions of Large Manufacture 



Box manufacturing goes by sections. Some regions ninke iiiany 

 more than others. Two considerations largely determine the number 

 of boxes produced in a region ; first, abundance of suitable wood, and, 

 second, proximity of a large and steady demand for the finished 

 product. Cheap, suitable wood is the first requisite. The finished 

 vhooks may be shipped considerable distances to market, but it is not 

 practicable to ship rough l)ox lumber very far. 



Nearly three-fourths of all the boxes, shooks, crates, crating, etc., 

 are manufactured in the region east of the Mississippi river and north 

 of Tennessee and North Carolina, which, owing to the extent of its 

 industries, oflfers the best market for boxes, and also embraces or 

 is contiguous to the sources of the woods most used in box making. 

 New England and New York produce and manufacture into boxes a 

 great deal of white pine, hemlock, spruce and balsam fir, though they 

 also secure a portion of their box material from Canada. Virginia and 

 Maryland produce yellow pine, and use nearly 1,000,000,000 feet a 

 year for boxes, though much of this comes from North Carolina. The 

 Lake States manufacture white pine into boxes, and supplj' much of 

 the material for the enormous box factories in Illinois. The latter 

 state, however, draws much of its box material from the hardwoods 

 and softwoods of the South. 



The Woods Used 



The following table shows the quantity of each of the many kinds 

 of wood in tbe United States made into boxes annually: 



Kind of Wood FcetB. M. 



White pine 1.131.969.!)4ii 



V. Il.,« pine 1.042.93«,12:i 



K.il cum 401,735,390 



Situ. .. 3.35,935,043 



W.st.rn vellow pine 228.091,927 



<.ittonwood 2I0.819..Wn 



ll.mlock 203.526.091 



\ .llow poplar 105,1 lp,737 



■Maple 90.!S31.04S 



f-irch 90.7S7.900 



liasswood SO.979.01 1 



Hoprh 77,.sni).2S0 



Tupelo 74.9N2.910 



Kim 63,726,458 



oak 50,362.111 



Balsam flr 40.173.700 



♦'.vprpss 38.962,895 



tlip.stiiut .30,216.700 



Sii-ar pine 24.686.000 



Sycaiiiorc 16.451.693 



Ash 10..507.30S 



Willow 10.004,000 



—28— 



liiniKlMK Mr 7.;i4U.N4(i 



X..1.1C Ur (l.0:)3,60(l 



MnKnoilH 5,44U.O<H) 



Ituckcyc 3,174.02>t 



White (Ir 3.H2.0KO 



Ortnr 2,512,150 



llcdwood 2,4:<U,nou 



Itcd rlr 1.32H,3:(0 



Hickory 7I17.U2U 



llult.rnut 578,0<M> 



Cucumlwr 524,000 



.\lplnc Or .'lOO.OOO 



llackbcrry 316,000 



• 'hcrry 170,500 



Ulnck walnut 1<I3,260 



Silver Kcll Tree ii1.;H)k 



.V|>i>lewood 1 .'LKOO 



.MuhoKony 13.000 



.\llanthu8 5,000 



Mountain nsli 5,(m»o 



Yucca .'1.500 



Total 4,547,973.180 



The bulletin from which the above figures are taken contains a map 

 which shows the regions most prominent in the box industry. The 

 Pacific coast states make ten per cent of the country's boxes. The 

 whole Rocky Mountain and Plains states region, including Louisiana, 

 Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, produce 

 eleven per cent. Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee make 

 nine per cent. Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio pro 

 duce twenty per cent; while the middle Atlantic and northeastern 

 states make fifty per cent. 



The boxes are of all kinds and for numerous purposes, ranging in 

 size from the cases for dry goods, which may have capacity for ten or 

 fifteen Inishels, down to the pint or pound cups for berries. Statistics 

 ilo not show the relative numbers of different kinds of boxes, but 

 it is believed that the products of orchards and gardens demand 

 nearly or quite one-half of the whole output of box lumber. Merchan- 

 dise requires a large part of the remaining half. 



Box material is prepared in various forms. Formerly, when wood 

 was cheap, much of the box lumber was of one-inch thickness. That 

 is unusual now, except where more than ordinary strength is required. 

 By using reinforcing strips, a box of thin lumber may be given the 

 strength of the old style box of inch boards. Increasing quantities 

 of veneer are employed by box makers. Most of it is rotary cut. 

 Such veneer is reduced to board measure in the figures of the accom- 

 panying table. 



Crates are classed as boxes and so appear in statistics. Much crat- 

 ing is used, however, which is never reported for statistical purposes. 

 As a rule, only crates which are made in factories are reported. Many 

 shippers make their own crates :is they need thoin. 



A Hint to Lumber Users 



Recently while in one of the large sheds of a leading consuming 

 plant of the Northwest, which shed will hold about 3,000,000 feet of 

 lumber, their was noticed an inscription on the front of a large pile 

 "Hands Oflf, Car No. ." 



On returning to the office the question was put to the owner and 

 manager as whether this was refused stock, which elicited the follow- 

 ing reply: "No! but we have a system of marking each complete 

 pile which represents a carload of lumber, with the car number and 

 as you notice 'Hands Off.' This enables us to first use up all the 

 smaller piles of the same class of lumber and when our inventory 

 period arrives we are able to get the exact amounts in the untouched 

 piles simply by referring to the car number. 



"In this way at our last inventory we were able to secure ac- 

 curate figures on 143 cars of stock which was considerable saving 

 in the time of the estimator and gave us figures on which we could 

 absolutely depend. ' ' 



Not a great deal is seen in print and not much is heard about it in 

 lumber conventions, but it is a fact that excelsior is an important 

 wood product, calling for a little over 100,000,000 feet of timber a 

 year. 



