686 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



HEMLOCK FOR PAIL HANDLES 

 More handles are made of hemlock than of any other softwood of this 

 country; but they are handles of certain kinds only, such as are seen 

 on bucket baits to provide a hold for the hand, and on packages, bundles, 

 and schoolbook carriers, and on lunch boxes. They are cheap and are' 

 seldom enameled. 



the drain does not fall heavily upon any. Exception 

 to this view might be taken with regard to three 

 woods, hickory, ash, and apple, each of which is 

 demanded for a special class of handles, apple for 

 saws, ash for farm tools, and hickory for axes and 

 some kinds of hammers, and also for golf clubs. An 

 examination of the sources of supplies brings to view 

 no alarming condition. Hickory to the amount of 

 120,000,000 feet is cut yearly for handles, and nearly 

 20,000,000,000 feet of standing hickory remain in the 

 United States. It is clear that exhaustion of this wood 

 is not imminent, though it is used by many industries 

 besides that producing handles. Hickory grows 

 rapidly and it flourishes best as an open ground tree, 

 and seedlings may be expected to spring up in old 

 fields and in cut-over lands. These situations are 

 precisely the places where the hickory tree produces 

 its best and most abundant wood. The more rapid the 

 growth of hickory, the better the wood is. It is one 

 of the few trees whose sapwood is more valuable than 

 the heart; and since sapwood predominates in young 

 trees, hickory is valuable as soon as it reaches a size 

 sufficient to make billets. Therefore, hickory is good 

 for handles when quite young, and it being a species 

 which reproduces rapidly and abundantly, handle 

 makers in the future can rest assured that hickory 

 trees can be found. 



The situation is not quite so reassuring with regard 

 to ash for tool handles ; yet no cause for pessimism 

 exists. Handlemakers require about 64,000,000 feet 

 of this yearly, and the existing supply of standing ash 

 timber in the United States has been estimated at 

 16,500,000,000, which, if cut for handles alone, would 

 last 250 years without depending on new growth. But 

 other industries demand ash, and young trees are com- 

 ing on. The drain is pretty severe, but no cause for 

 uneasiness or alarm is apparent. Ash handles for hoes, 

 forks and shovels will be forthcoming during many 

 future years. 



Good handsaws could be made without applewood 

 handles ; but enough of this wood for handles is assured 

 for a long period. 



A large class of small, medium, and miscellaneous 

 handles can be made from American woods without 

 danger of exhausting the supply. No large quantity of 

 foreign woods is imported by handle makers, but such 

 as are imported are very hard and very fine-grained 

 woods, or woods of attractive color. These, too, might 

 be largely, if not wholly, supplied from our own for- 

 ests, not to identical species which are brought from 

 foreign countries, but others which might take their 

 places without causing any lessening in quality or ap- 

 pearance of the handles produced. Our forests are rich 

 in minor species of hardness, fine color, strength and 

 of beautiful grain. Most of them are not abundant, but 

 they exist in sufficient quantities to meet a much larger 

 demand than is now met by imported handle woods. 

 The trouble is, manufacturers are unacquainted with 

 or have no knowledge of many woods of our country 



