Current Literature. 553 



industries will ultimately have to shut down, and the State will 

 suffer from the consequent loss of business. Nearly every year 

 fire rages in Virginia's forests and the annual loss to the State 

 is not less than $350,000. The forests cover an area of 15 

 million acres or equal to one-half of that of the State and are 

 estimated to be worth over $100,000,000." 



"Of the woods used by the manufacturers only seven were 

 reported as coming entirely from Virginia forests. They were 

 scrub pine, yellow or black oak, white (soft) elm, yellow buck- 

 eye, persimmon, sassafras, and silver maple. On the other hand, 

 the entire supplies of rock elm, butternut, and Osage orange come 

 from other states. These woods are cut in Virginia in quantities 

 more than sufficient to meet the local demands, but the manufac- 

 turers evidently found shipped-in woods more convenient. It 

 is significant of the growing scarcity of native, eastern softwoods 

 that three species from the Pacific Coast states were called on to 

 meet uses in Virginia in competition with the eastern woodt 

 They were Douglas fir, western red cedar, and sugar pine. 

 Eleven foreign woods were reported, some of them at high 

 prices. * * * Nearly 45 per cent, of the wood used by the Vir- 

 ginia manufacturers was cut from the forests of other states." 



'"Cherry was the most expensive domestic wood, with an aver- 

 age price of $97.40 per thousand board feet. The Pacific Coast 

 woods had the next highest prices and sugar pine led. It was 

 purchased for $68.38. Of the eastern woods the most expensive 

 was red cedar at $36.48. The price shown for black walnut is 

 surprising. It follows red cedar at an average of $35.85. The 

 cheapest wood was cotton gum, costing $9.65. There is $1.82 

 difference in the price of cotton gum and black gum. Hemlock 

 is the lowest priced conifer, and white elm next to cotton gimi 

 the cheapest hardwood. 



"Only a little more than one-half of the material used by 

 the Virginia manufacturers was state grown. This does not 

 mean that the state forests were incapable of furnishing more, 

 because the lumber cut of the Virginia sawmills for 1909 was con- 

 siderably more than five times that consumed by the wood users. 

 Several conditions, however, favor the use of shipped-in-material 

 Industries near the borders draw their raw material from near-by 

 localities, irrespective of State boundaries. The railroads en- 

 tering the large consuming centers of Eastern Virginia from the 



