Issued June 29, 1907. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



FOREST SERVICE CIRCULAR 107. 

 fjTaMw .smOJfaf 



GIFFORD PINCHOT, Forester. 



SAWMILL STATISTICS. 



A compilation of the reports received from over 10,000 sawmills 

 in the United States upon their operations in 1905 gives the accom- 

 panying table, in which are shown the proportion of lumber kiln- 

 dried and the proportion surfaced, the amount of slab wood sold, and 

 the proportion of logs cut on lands belonging to the sawmill opera- 

 tors. No figures along these lines are available for New York, and 

 nftne are given for several of the States in which the cut was very 

 small. 



The States in which the largest proportion of lumber is kiln-dried 

 by manufacturers are South Carolina, with 51.3 per cent; North 

 Carolina, with 36.5 per cent; Florida, with 35.9 per cent; Alabama, 

 with 34.8 per cent; and Georgia, with 30.6 per cent. In other States 

 the amount is less than 30 per cent. Altogether, 1,642 mills reported 

 the use of dry kilns. 



A large amount? of the pine cut in the South is kiln-dried in order 

 to reduce its shipping weight, and this is especially true of loblolly 

 or North Carolina pine. Kiln-drying is practiced to a less extent in 

 the Rocky Mountain and Pacific coast States, and very little lumber 

 is kiln-dried by the sawmill operators in the hardwood region or 

 where the cut is principally by portable mills. For the country as 

 a whole, about 15 per cent of the lumber cut is kiln-dried at the mill. 



A much larger proportion of the cut is surfaced at the mills than 

 is kiln-dried. Of the mills reporting, more than 3,900 surfaced a 

 portion of their cut. For the country as a whole, at least 35 per cent 

 is surfaced before it is shipped. In this respect Iowa leads, with 77.2 

 per cent surfaced ; but this is because most of the lumber cut in that 

 State is in a few big mills along the Mississippi which operate 

 exclusively on northern pine. Aside from Iowa, the States in which 

 the larger proportion of the cut is surfaced at the sawmill are Texas, 

 with 71.7 per cent; Louisiana, with 60.3 per cent; Idaho, 59.4 per 

 cent; Montana, 55.2 per cent; and Arkansas, with 50.6 per cent. In 

 all the other States less than half the cut is surfaced by the sawmill 

 operators, and, as in kiln-drying, a relatively small proportion of the 

 total cut is surfaced in the hardwood regions. 



Some 4,000 mills reported sales of slab wood totaling 3,503,287 



cords. Washington leads in this respect, with 559,231 cords, followed 



by Michigan, with 523,518 cords ; Wisconsin, with 368,478 cords ; and 



Virginia, with 213,522 cords. It is probably safe to assume that this 



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