100 



Woodenware refers to useful household articles, such as pails, buckets, 

 freezers, hose reels, snow shovels, rat and mouse traps, comb boxes, broom 

 holders, and towel racks, and also to utensils important in the equipment of 

 kitchens, such as pastry and pie boards, meat boards, rolling pins, slaw 

 cutters, fish and steak planks, lemon squeezers, potato mashers, etc. A 

 portion of the pails made by this industry in Pennsylvania is for candy 

 packages. Though these may more properly belong to the box industry, 

 they have been included here with other pails and buckets, the method of 

 manufacture being identical and the same factories making both styles. 

 While white pine is the favorite wood for pail staves in Pennsylvania, as 

 it is in nearly all other states where this industry is important, a few of the 

 softer hardwoods like basswood, yellow poplar, buckeye, and willow are also 

 employed. Bales or handles of buckets are rarely made by the pail manu- 

 facturer. The variety wood-workers or manufacturers specializing in all 

 kinds of turnings furnish them. Beech, birch, and maple are used in the 

 largest quantities. 



Mouse traps belong to this industry. They are made of beech, yellow 

 poplar, red gum, sugar maple, and white elm in the order named, and over 

 1,500,000 feet of these woods are annually required for their making. Sugar 

 maple and holly were used for rolling pins, the latter being shipped from 

 Arkansas and being desired because of its density, toughness, whitish color, 

 and its capacity to turn well. Beech being strong and not imparting a taste 

 went for lemon squeezers except for the bowls which required a harder, 

 denser wood. Lignum-vitae , sent in from the West Indies, was found most 

 suitable and is used for expensive squeezers while glass bowls answered for 

 cheaper ones. 



Planks for cooking planked fish and steaks have been made for years from 

 one wood, principally white oak. Originally a common surfaced oak board met 

 the demand but now they are manufactured in various shapes and sizes to fit 

 the holders into which they are placed for service. To keep the essences 

 from running off the plank they <are frequently grooved which adds also to their 

 appearance when not in use. Rosewood was the only foreign wood reported 

 for toddy sticks but sugar maple and beech are most commonly used. 



Novelties are of so many different kinds that space here will not allow an 

 attempt to name them. Novelty makers themselves can hardly list all the 

 different articles they make because they produce specialties of all kinds, 

 mostly to order, and usually have no standard lines. Those marked with 

 an * in the legend of the accompanying illustration will give an idea of the 

 class of commodities included as novelties. 



Table 62. Wood for Woodenware and Novelties, year ending June, 1912. 



