THE WAR AGAINST WOOD WASTE 207 



producing for hundreds of years finally becomes of use to 

 man. 



Fortunately only in very wasteful mills would all this ma- 

 terial be thrown away. Wood is too valuable and is becoming 

 too scarce not to make use of every available piece. As wood 

 increases in values, more and more careful measures are taken 

 to prevent waste. Not so long ago, each large sawmill possessed 

 as part of its equipment a tall cylindrical tower called a refuse 

 burner. At the base of this cylinder a fire burned, and to it the 

 slabs, edgings, sawdust, bark and other odds and ends of wood 

 were taken and burned. A great deal of the profits went up in 

 smoke with those odds and ends, and as mills have devised 

 more careful methods and found new uses for parts, formerly 

 burned, the fires in these refuse burners are less bright and 

 some of them have gone out forever. 



Foresters and the lumber industry together are waging war 

 on wood waste in industry. Each year the many kinds of waste 

 that attend the manufacture of logs into lumber eat up hun- 

 dreds of millions of dollars worth of wood. But each year 

 waste is decreasing. Parts of pine and fir, that not so long ago 

 went to the refuse burner, are being used today for laths; 

 pieces of hardwoods that once were thrown away are being 

 converted into furniture stock, handles, woodenware, toys and 

 other small objects. . 



Sawdust was once a burdensome thing to mill operators, 

 something that was a problem to get rid of. They couldn't 

 give it away. Now industry is finding many uses for it. Saw- 

 dust serves as fuel to keep the mill furnaces going; it is used 

 for packing and for refrigeration, and Uncle Sam has even 

 learned how to make a food out of it that cattle eat and thrive 



