Depleted Forest Wealth of New York 13 
difficulty of obtaining supplies in times of stress from sources 
over which New York has no control. It is one phase of the 
threatening conditions which confront the wood-working indus- 
tries. The fact that a State, once foremost in timber produc- 
tion, should be brought to such a plight, at a time when public 
desire for the products was never more urgent, reveals the 
extent to which the depletion of important native species, such 
as white pine and oak, has proceeded. It is in times of stress 
that fundamental weaknesses become evident, and the weakest 
spot in the organism is the one which will probably show the 
most acute symptoms of distress. 
PoOssIBILITIES FOR CLOSER UTILIzATION 
In the period of ample wood supply the chief aim of the 
superintendent of a wood-working plant was to increase his 
production, without much calculation of the percentage of 
waste involved. Where not lavishly wasteful his methods may 
properly be termed economical, for the overhead, the additional | 
attention, and the labor involved in preventing wastage would 
often have cost more than the material. Shop customs have 
a tendency to become habits, passed on from one generation 
of workers to another, and the American shop worker has not 
always adjusted his methods to the rising cost of material. 
The frontiersmen who built bonfires of black walnut, oak, and 
cherry logs were acclaimed as homebuilders at one period in 
our history, but at this date such destruction of valuable 
material would be unthinkable. 
For ten or fifteen years the doctrine of waste utilization has 
been given increasingly careful scrutiny in most shops. Yet 
the present proportion of waste lumber is ordinarily reported 
as 10 per cent, and in some cases up to 33 per cent. The turn- 
ing of curved forms may result in 50 or 60 per cent of loss in 
shavings. It is obvious that there is a very profitable field for 
the introduction of closer calculations, better methods, and 
improved machinery. 
It must be recognized that in the production of any given 
article there is probably an irreducible minimum of waste, 
