WOOD-MANUFACTURING IN MARYLAND 



Maryland manufacturers converted 284,346,895 feet of rough lum- 

 ber into finished products in 1909. These figures do not show the 

 total quantity of wood of all kinds and for all purposes used in the 

 State, perhaps not half of it. They deal only with that portion of the 

 cut of sawmills which, after it leaves the saw, is further worked by 

 machinery, or, at least, by the expenditure of considerable labor upon 

 it before it takes its final form. Lumber which goes into what is gen- 

 erally known as rough construction is not included, nor are railroad 

 ties, telegraph and telephone poles, mine props, wharf piles, fence 

 posts, shingles, and clapboards. The mere cutting off or mortising 

 of beams and planks to fit them in frames, trestles, and bridges, does 

 not constitute sufficient manufacture to bring them within the scope 

 of this study. Many finished commodities are shipped into the State 

 ready for use, and these, too, are excluded from the tables which fol- 

 low, because the manufacturing was not done in Maryland. Much 

 furniture and woodenware fall in this class, and many vehicles. The 

 distinction between commodities manufactured in Maryland and those 

 made elsewhere and shipped in to be sold, excludes large quantities 

 of planed and matched flooring which comes from mills in the South 

 and West, and much interior finish and turned work. 



The cost at the factory of the wood used by the Maryland manu- 

 facturers was $5,878,631, or an average price of $20.67 per thousand 

 feet board measure. The average cost of state-grown wood was $14.44 

 per thousand, and of that shipped into the State from the outside, 

 $22.25. The State supplied 57,530,500 feet, and the balance, or 226,- 

 816,395 feet, came from other States, and to a small extent from for- 

 eign countries 20 per cent being state-grown at a total cost of $830,- 

 679.66, and 80 per cent from the outside at a cost of $5,047,952. No 

 attempt has been made to ascertain or estimate the value of the fin- 

 ished commodities made of wood in the State. The market for these 

 products is world-wide. In many instances a single manufacturer 



