99 



Not all of the Spanish cedar goes into cigar boxes as thin lumber. Much 

 of it is veneer glued to a native wood that is thicker and this two-ply stock 

 supplies a large part of the demand of the cigar box material and at a price 

 considerably below that asked for Spanish cedar lumber. Yellow pop- 

 lar, cotton gum, basswood, and red gum are the domestic woods which 

 furnish most of the veneer backing. Yellow poplar is used in larger quan- 

 tities in Pennsylvania than the combined amounts of the three other woods, 

 probably because western Pennsylvania is near to the center of the yellow 

 poplar lumber producing region. This region, together with a part of Penn- 

 sylvania, includes mainly West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, and 

 southern Ohio. Tupelo or cotton gum and red gum are equally well suited 

 for built-up material. They work easily and with the recent improvement 

 in kiln drying veneer the objection formerly made to their tendency to twist 

 and warp has been largely overcome. The decreasing supply of yellow poplar 

 and its large demand for many other uses are bringing cotton and red gum 

 rapidly to the front for this line of manufacture. 



The domestic woods used are not all overlaid with Spanish cedar veneer. 

 They are extensively cut to full thickness for boxes of solid lumber. To give 

 these woods a cigar box appearance , which means to make it resemble Spanish 

 cedar, the process of stamping is resorted to and improvements in this line 

 give it an effect which makes it difficult without close inspection to dis- 

 tinguish the imitations from the cedar. Where domestic woods are inde- 

 pendently used, most often the inside of the box is covered with litho paper, 

 advertising the name of the cigar and maker. Waste in cigar box manu- 

 facture is largely utilized; the ends and sides can be made from what is 

 left after cutting the tops and bottoms. 



Table 61. Wood for Cigar Boxes, year ending June, 1912. 



WOODENWARE AND NOVELTIES. 



The commodities produced by the factories grouped under this industry 

 are many and varied. This accounts for the twenty different woods listed 

 in Table 62, including small quantities of two foreign woods, rosewood and 

 lignum-vitae. The total consumption of wood in this industry was over eight 

 and one-half million feet annually and beech, mostly home-grown, was used 

 in quantities greater than the total of any other five woods listed. Basswood 

 represented the greatest amount of shipped-in material, a little over three- 

 fourths of it coming from New York and West Virginia. 



