WOOD FUEL AS A NATIONAL NEED 



87 



section of the country has its favored woods, and these 

 are said to be, in general, the right ones to use. Hickory, 

 of the non-resinous woods, has the highest fuel value per 

 unit volume of wood, and has other advantages. It burns 

 evenly, and, as housewives say, holds the heat. The oaks 

 come next, followed by beech, birch and maple. The 

 white pines have a relatively low heat value per unit vol- 

 ume, but have other advantages. They ignite readily 

 and give out a quick, hot flame, but one that soon dies 

 down. This makes them favorites with rural house- 

 keepers as a summer wood, because they are particularly 

 adapted for hot days in the kitchen. The same is true 

 of gray birch, or "white birch," as it is often called, in 

 the regions in which it abounds. With the resinous pines 

 a drawback is their oily black smoke. 



The war has done for the fuel question what it has 

 done for many other national problems. It has 

 focused the attention of the 

 people upon it as a real 

 problem requiring real at- 

 tention. The labor and 

 transportation difficulties 

 which have resulted in the 

 coal shortage at local con- 

 suming points have made 

 many people think about 

 the origin of fuel for the 

 first time. Because of the 

 inability of the railroads to 

 cope with the situation, lo- 

 cal wood must become 

 more and more the "war 

 fuel" as the war progresses. 



It is estimated that the 

 annual consumption of fire- 

 wood in this country is 

 about 100,000,000 cords, or 

 about one cord per capita. 

 Allowing one and one-half 

 cords of wood, of any 

 species in general, as the 

 equivalent of one ton of 

 either bituminous or an- 

 thracite coal this means the 

 replacement of 66,666,000 

 tons of coal. As compared 

 to an annual consumption 

 of 500,000,000 tons of coal 

 this is a rather insignificant 

 figure, but it must be re- 

 membered that the larger 

 part of the coal is used for 

 steam production, for 

 which wood is unsuited. 

 The wood is used largely 

 for domestic purposes and 

 as such is in competition 

 only with the 110,000,000 

 tons used domestically. In 



Photograph by Western Newspaper Union. 



A SIGN OF THE TIMES 

 Prof. W. D. Clark, of the faculty of the Massachusetts Agricultural Col- 

 le K e at Amherst, is an enthusiastic member of the Cut-a-Cord Club and 

 has his inspiration ever before him in the form of a sign posted by the 

 Massachusetts Fuel Administration. His posture proves him to be in 

 deadly earnest. 



other words, if the wood were replaced by coal the 

 amount of coal used for domestic purposes would be in- 

 creased about one-half. 



There is no likelihood that wood will take the place 

 of coal to any considerable extent in the large cities, 

 but it is important to know that there is enough wood 

 going to waste in the farm woodlots of the eastern 

 United States to meet the entire domestic fuel needs for 

 the duration of a most protracted war. The problem is 

 how to organize the production and transportation of 

 this wood on a large scale. It is probably conservative 

 to say that 500,000,000 cords of wood could be cut from 

 the farm woodlands of the eastern United States with- 

 out in any way retarding their growth ; in fact to their 

 permanent improvement. 



If the exigencies of war force us to burn more wood 

 temporarily they may result in a permanent substi- 

 tution of wood for much 

 coal hitherto burned in 

 wooded regions far from 

 the mines. It is declared 

 that the forest areas of the 

 United States will undoubt- 

 edly be more than able to 

 take the place of our an- 

 thracite coal mines ; and of 

 bituminous coal we have 

 enough for a long time to 

 come. It has been esti- 

 mated that the total forest 

 area of the United States 

 will shrink eventually to 

 about 450,000,000 acres, or 

 a fourth of the total land 

 area. Under good forest 

 management an average 

 annual yield of one cord 

 per acre may be expected 

 from this vast forest do- 

 main. The war emergency 

 offers an opportunity to 

 clear the woods of a lot of 

 this material, and if prop- 

 erly taken advantage of 

 may be a most important 

 turning point in the whole 

 conservation movement in 

 the United States. 



Already it is apparent 

 that problems of financing 

 and distribution must be 

 met by each community. 

 The owners of farm wood 

 lots and large lumber op- 

 erators must be assured 

 that their cord wood will 

 be taken at prices which 

 will repay them for the 

 work. In some localities 



