REVIEWS 



Fireivoods: Their Production and Fuel Values. By A. D. Webster, 

 T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. London, 1919. Pp. 95, illustrated. 



The principal reason for writing this book was "that the question of 

 firewood production and utilization, owing to the unparalleled scarcity 

 of coal, was never so acute as at the present time," while "no book 

 of a similar kind, in which the value of wood as fuel is explained, has 

 before been written." The total timber felled per annum in the 

 British Isles is now about 15,000,000 tons, of which 1,000,000 tons 

 should be available for fuel. Another 1,000,000 tons could be ob- 

 tained from field and roadside trees, besides considerable amounts 

 from dead and dying trees, from pruning dead branches from living 

 trees, and from stumps and roots. More space is given to methods of 

 blasting stumps and roots than to the securing of wood from the more 

 usual sources. The chief obstacles in the way of fully utilizing avail- 

 able fuel wood are the scarcity of labor and difficulty of transport. It 

 is stated that material more than one mile from consuming centers is 

 hard to dispose of. Drawbacks to utilization of wood fuel are the 

 storage space required, and the bother of using wood as compared with 

 coal. Vast quantities of firewood, charcoal and kindling wood were 

 sent to France and Flanders for use of the armies, so that these 

 products were hard to obtain at home. Prices within 12 miles of 

 London were before the war about 10 shillings per cord (stacked on 

 the cutting area apparently). At the end of 1918 the corresponding 

 price was from 15 to 20 shillings per cord. 



Firewood is usually taken to mean material from 3 to 8 inches in 

 diameter ; smaller twigs are classed as faggot wood. Firewood is 

 usually sold by the stack — generally a half-cord or cord of 128 

 stacked cubic feet, although local custom in different districts has 

 established cords of various sizes between 90 and 141 stacked cubic 

 feet. A cord contains an average of about 1,000 pieces of firewood 

 size. Wood is generally cut up and split by hand, although power 

 saws are used on some of the larger estates. Faggots are used for 

 ordinary fuel, for kindling, for baker's ovens, and for brick kilns, 

 and are put up in bundles of several standard sizes, ranging from 9 

 inches long and 13 inches in circumference (called "pimps") to 4 to 6 



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