589 



SECTION VIII. MISCELLANEOUS USES OF WOOD. 



A very large quantity of wood is consumed in making 

 packing-cases, for which coniferous wood of middling or 

 inferior quality, and side-pieces and other waste timber are 

 used, especially when the cases are fastened together by bands 

 of zinc or iron. Casks used for packing also are made of 

 inferior coniferous wood. Better and more durable classes of 

 packing-cases are, however, coming more and more into use, 

 beech being employed largely. 



For small boxes used for packing fancy goods, soap and other 

 small articles, wood of conifers, poplar, aspen and lime are 

 used, cut like veneers with special saws, or even a whole 

 round block of wood is revolved against a sharp fixed blade, 

 and converted into a sheet of wood for this purpose. In 

 France, light wood such as aspen is thus used to reduce as 

 much as possible the gross weight of the goods. Wood-pulp 

 and tin are used frequently instead of wood. 



German cigar-boxes are made usually of alderwood, and 

 the pieces without bark should be 9 inches to 1 foot in 

 diameter and free from knots ; they are sawn into planks, 

 and the latter reduced to thin boards by the circular saw. It 

 is a pity that there is not more good alderwood available. 



The wood of the West Indian cedar (Cedrela odorata, L.), 

 allied to mahogany, is imported in large balks, not only for 

 boxes for the best cigars, but also for inferior ones, especially 

 in N. Germany, and this in spite of freights and import duty. 

 Attempts to use the wood of poplar and lime for boxes for 

 cheap cigars, and especially stained beechwood, have failed, 

 owing to the warping of the wood. Cigars are pressed into a 

 good shape in presses made below of beechwood and above of 

 spruce, the groove and presses being of beech and hornbeam. 

 Entire stems of beech are used for this purpose at Hanau, 

 Bremen, and W6rth-am-Main, but this industry has lately 

 suffered from American competition. 



A very large quantity of wood is used annually in the 

 numerous pianoforte-factories, which in Germany alone in 

 1899 turned out about 105,000 pianos, worth 2,000,000. In 

 piano-making all kinds of sawn wood (oak, beech, walnut, 



