76 



Table 51. Wood for Chairs, year ending June, 1912. 



VEHICLES AND VEHICLE PARTS. 



The statistics presented in Table 52 represent the wood used both for motor 

 and horse drawn vehicles. Though there is considerable material used in 

 the manufacture of motor cars including both pleasure cars and commercial 

 trucks, fully 90 per cent, of the material reported went into the latter. The 

 rapid growth of the automobile industry has greatly increased the demand 

 for the vehicle woods, but, according to reports, has not made a correspond- 

 ing reduction in the demand for horse drawn vehicles. In fact a number of 

 Pennsylvania manufacturers, especially wagon makers, remarked upon the 

 increased production of horse drawn vehicles in the last five years; and 

 those that formerly specialized in building buggies and wagons and now are 

 engaged in making autos have in most cases not relinquished the manufacture 

 of the horse vehicle but have increased their facilities and manufacture 

 both kinds. 



Often carriage manufacturers are practically nothing more than assemblers 

 of parts. They buy the wheels and other portions of the running gears and 

 the bodies and tops already manufactured and enter into production only as 

 finishers. In the same way wheelwrights and repair shops that are dis- 

 tributed in nearly every village and town throughout Pennsylvania purchase 

 much of their material like spokes, rims, hubs, hounds, and felloes ready to 

 use. Information was not solicited from these classes of establishments as 

 the scope of the investigation excludes them. 



The number of manufacturers making vehicle parts is large in Pennsylvania 

 and the quantity of wood they consumed represents the largest proportion of 

 that shown in the table. Most of this class report making only one commodity 

 as hubs, spokes, rims, poles or shafts. A few, however, specialize in manu- 

 facturing two, but in no instance were there reported as many as three. 



