268 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



at contributing plants were carefully inspected and supervised to insure 

 the proper cut of desired products. Incidentally these activities were 

 of as direct assistance in supplying material for propellers as for gun- 

 stocks. While the results cannot be directly measured, it seems certain 

 that the entire output was more than doubled and at the close of the 

 war the supply of material on hand was not a cause for concern. The 

 question of substitution, however, in the course of two or three years 

 more would have been one of first importance. The limited black- 

 walnut stand made the problem of artificial drying one of first impor- 

 tance also. Proper methods had been developed in co-operation with 

 a plant which before this method had been worked out had been unable 

 to make any deliveries of rifles. A number of the concerns using For- 

 est Service drying specifications are turning out gunstocks with losses 

 of less than one per cent not uncommon. One plant adhering to a 

 different schedule lost 60,000 blanks in one run. valued at $1.20 each 

 when green. 



A wooden box seems at first thought hardly a subject for investiga- 

 tion. Our laboratory work of past years was, however, of very great 

 value. It became possible to broaden existing specifications. High- 

 grade white pine, for example, or a very limited number of species, was 

 replaced by approximately thirty species classified according to suit- 

 ability and in standard widths and thicknesses. Nailing and strapping- 

 and construction in general were standardized and adapted to the very 

 severe requirements of overseas shipments under extraordinary con- 

 ditions as to labor shortage, etc. It became possible to use the species 

 near at hand and to use box-making plants everywhere. Boxes were 

 strengthened to the required point by using a few more nails and by 

 strapping. Large sums were saved in initial costs and requirements,, 

 and cargo space, a vital factor, was materially reduced in practically 

 every box specification considered. Some of the boxes in which space 

 was saved were shipped by the millions and many others had merely 

 reached the point of approval for quantity production. Redesigns for 

 specific boxes saved, for example, 30 per cent, 43 per cent, 14 per cent, 

 and 33 per cent of the original cargo space. Official reports are to the 

 effect that since July i losses upon arrival in France are only 15 per 

 cent of those before July i, and now compare favorably with domestic 

 shipments. This is in part due to the application of the investigations 

 of the Forest Products Laboratory. 



The use of wood pulp to supplement the supply of cotton linters, for 

 which it seemed to be more satisfactory for purely mechanical reasons 



