INTRODUCTION. 



The Bureau of the Census, in co-operation with the United States 

 Forest Service, compiles and publishes statistics annually, showing 

 the output of sawmills by States and for the whole country. The 

 cut in Massachusetts in 1908 was 384,526,000 feet B. M., reported 

 by 610 sawmills. This did not include pulpwood, tanbark, tanning 

 extracts, cross-ties, telegraph and telephone poles, or cooperage and 

 veneer stocks. 



After lumber leaves the sawmill it serves many purposes. Some 

 of it passes through no further process of manufacture, but goes into 

 buildings with only the cutting and fitting which carpenters give it. 

 Another part is further manufactured before it is used. Wood- 

 working machines of many kinds change its form, and it is cut, 

 joined and fitted by skilled labor, becoming, partly or wholly, a fin- 

 ished product, boxes, frames, doors, sash, vehicles, boats, shuttles, 

 spools, lasts, baskets, musical instruments, furniture, handles, toys, 

 brushes and many more. This study has to do with that part of 

 lumber only which undergoes further process of manufacture after 

 it leaves the sawmill. 



Heretofore, lumber has not been very carefully followed after it 

 leaves the saw, to ascertain what becomes of it, what is made of it, 

 and into what commodities it enters. In a general way it has been 

 known that some of it is used in its rough form, and some passes 

 through further process of manufacture. The present study of the 

 wood-manufacturing industries of Massachusetts was undertaken to 

 supply information concerning the lumber which is not used in its 

 rough form. The work has been done in co-operation by the United 

 States Forest Service and the State of Massachusetts. Industries 

 which manufacture commodities wholly or partly of wood were 

 asked to furnish data along their special lines, and this report is 

 based on their replies, supplemented by independent investigations 

 throughout the State. 



Statistics thus collected and published are expected to be useful to 

 both growers and manufacturers of wood. It is shown what part 



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