BY-PRODUCT MILLS IN THE HARDWOOD INDUSTRY 437 



which are practically essential at sawmills manufacturing box shooks 

 or other manufactured products from their waste. It also has the 

 advantage of enabling the use of a large number of different woods, 

 whereas generally a box factory must confine itself to one or two. 

 Under proper management it should be more profitable than selling 

 waste to pulp or chemical plants, and relatively few mills are situated 

 close enough to plants of this kind to be able to sell to them profitably. 

 Nearly all of the common hardwoods of the eastern United States 

 have some value when cut into small-sized dimension pieces. A suc- 

 cessful hardwood mill man, who has had much experience in the 

 by-product line, declared the value of the common hardwoods to be 

 about in the following order: Oak, yellow poplar, chestnut, beech, 

 birch, and maple. Basswood, cucumber (Magnolia), etc., are oc- 

 casionally run in with poplar, as they are in straight lumber manu- 

 facturing. Other species, such as black and red gum, black walnut, 

 ash, cherry, cottonwood, etc., could doubtless be used where they are 

 sufficiently plentiful, as could be certain of the softwoods, notably 

 white pine. As a matter of practice, such scattering softwoods as are 

 cut on the average hardwood operation are generally turned into lath 

 rather than chair or furniture stock. Nearly any size stock below that 

 of standard lumber can be made at such plants, but in such as have 

 been visited by the writer it is the general policy to concentrate manu- 

 facturing on certain sized pieces, generally with dimensions in whole or 

 half inches. 



At a certain plant the following cutting sizes are regarded as 

 standard: l"x 1" to 3"x3", lengths 123^" to 60". One-inch squares 

 are regarded as the least profitable class of stock, although, of course, 

 the easiest to obtain. Oak, 3"x 3", used for table legs is said to be the 

 most desirable stock. 



The operating costs of by-products (not including lath) of such 

 a plant as described are about as follows : 



M feet b. m. 



Manufacture $10. 00 



Piling and seasoning 2 . 00 



Loading .> 50 



Supplies 1 . 00 



$13.50 

 The success of such a plant, when run in conjunction with the 

 average hardwood mill, will depend to a considerable measure upon 

 its proximity to markets and its selling connections. The future will 

 probably see a greater extension of the idea. 



