CHAPTER XVII 

 PUTTING WOOD WASTE TO WORK 



For many years technical studies of wood 

 were neglected. Detailed investigations of steel, 

 concrete, oil, rubber and other materials were 

 made but wood apparently was forgotten. It 

 has been only during the last decade since the 

 establishment of the Forest Products Labora- 

 tory of the United States Forest Service, at 

 Madison, Wisconsin, that tests and experiments 

 to determine the real value of different woods 

 have been begun. One of the big problems of 

 the government scientists at that station, which 

 is conducted in cooperation with the University 

 of Wisconsin, is to check the needless waste of 

 wood. By actual test they find out all about the 

 wasteful practices of lumbering in the woods 

 and mills. Then they try to educate and convert 

 the lumbermen and manufacturers away from 

 such practices. 



The laboratory experts have already per- 

 formed more than 500,000 tests with 149 different 

 kinds of native woods. As a result of these ex- 



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