122 



and Lake states, aspen or popple, basswood and willow are used; in Vir- 

 ginia and North Carolina, scrub and loblolly pine, yellow poplar, and white 

 pine meet the demand. In the Mississippi Valley states excelsior makers 

 report the use of cottonwood, yellow poplar and yellow pine, and in the 

 Pacific coast states black cottonwood alone furnishes all of the demand. For 

 the United States, in quantity, aspen is the favorite excelsior wood, yellow 

 pine next. Pennsylvania manufacturers prefer basswood and yellow poplar 

 next. These woods with aspen make the best grades of excelsior. The con- 

 sumption of yellow poplar in this line of manufacture is greater in Pennsyl- 

 vania than in any other state, though it is used in eight others. Butter- 

 nut appears in only one other state, New Jersey, and, next to Michigan, 

 beech finds its greatest demand in Pennsylvania for excelsior. Chestnut 

 excelsior is solely a product of Pennsylvania and until this investigation, 

 the Forest Service had received no record of the use of this wood for this 

 purpose. Excelsior wood should be straight grained, soft, dense, light in 

 weight and color, moderately non-brittle, stiff when dry, and odorless. 



The raw material used for making excelsior comes in the form of bolts and 

 split billets, usually in lengths the multiples of 18 inches. The wood is 

 thoroughly seasoned before manufacturing but if seasoned too long it be- 

 comes brittle and often is injured by certain forms of incipient decay. The 

 billets are set in the excelsior machines and without further handling are 

 shaved into the finished product. The output of an eight block machine 

 varies from 6,000 to 10,000 pounds per day according to the fineness of 

 the product. From the cutting machines the excelsior is taken to the bal- 

 ing room where presses, similar in operation to hay balers, put it into 

 marketable form. 



The first use of excelsior was for packing wares liable to injury in trans- 

 portation, but later it proved valuable for filling cheap mattresses and up- 

 holstered furniture. In France not only does excelsior answer for this pur- 

 pose, but highly improved machinery has made it possible to manufacture 

 a product of such fine grade as to be a fit substitute for the absorbent lint 

 used in hospital, or filtration purposes, and for weaving into floor coverings. 

 Various grades of excelsior are frequently dyed without losing their elasticity. 

 They serve as an ornamental packing material, and for color schemes in dis- 

 playing goods in show cases, but none was reported in Pennsylvania. Table 

 77 gives the available statistics. 



Table 77. Wood for Excelsior, year ending June, 1912. 



