402 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



an additional drain on our rapidly diminishing forest 

 resources. Several billion feet, worth in the neighbor- 

 hood of $75,000,000, could be saved annually if full use 

 were made of preservative processes for treating ties, 

 poles, posts, piling, mine timbers, shingles, lumber, and 

 other wood which is exposed to the weather and thereby 

 subject to decay. A large percentage of the annual loss 

 from fire in the United States of about $200,000,000 is 

 in wooden structures, and this could be materially re- 

 duced through the development of fire-retarding paints 

 and compounds and fire-resisting construction. A cas- 

 ual survey shows that the losses from faulty mill and 

 shop practices in a wide range of industries amount to 

 millions of dollars annually. Unnecessary losses through 

 packing and shipment in poorly designed and constructed 

 containers are variously estimated at from' $40,000,000 

 to $100,000,000 annually for domestic shipments alone, 

 and the packing methods used by American concerns in 

 export shipments are reported by the Consular Service 

 to be notoriously bad. 



"Practically every city in the United States has its 

 own building code, and for wood as a material there is 

 the greatest confusion and practically unlimited range 

 in requirements. Reasonable uniformity would be of 

 obvious advantage to both manufacturer and consumer. 

 In structural timbers, strength is ordinarily a prime 

 requisite, yet for only two groups of timbers in the 

 United States has a system of grading rules been devel- 

 oped which selects the wood on a basis of its strength. 



For lumber, practically every species has at least one 

 distinct set of grading rules and several species have 

 more than one set, and this from the standpoint of the 

 consumer results in a confusion which places the average 

 consumer at a great disadvantage in his lumber pur- 

 chases. 



"Of the material in the woods, only approximately 30 

 per cent appears in the form of seasoned rough lumber, 

 and in the manufacture of the rough lumber there is a 

 further waste which in some important wood-consuming 

 industries reaches from io to 25 per cent, and in special 

 cases even higher. In the bending of high-grade stock 

 in vehicle making, for example, losses frequently reach 

 50 per cent. We are clearly falling far short of taking 

 advantage of our opportunities for saving and utilizing 

 this enormous waste. 



"Many of the industries which manufacture and util- 

 ize wood are among the oldest industries, and as such 

 have been very slow on their own initiative to improve 

 their processes and cut down waste. The public is con- 

 cerned as much as the industries, because inefficient 

 methods and waste are exhausting our remaining timber 

 resources and are increasing prices of all wood products 

 to the consumer. The only effective solution of this 

 situation lies in forest products research, provided for 

 in the Forest Products Laboratory. 



"It was for this purpose of promoting economy and 

 efficiency in the utilization of wood and in the processes 

 by which forest materials are converted into commercial 



THE LOG YARD OF THE FOREST PRODUCTS LABORATORY 



r^iif'iL"'. 1 . f . u h ' "T* 1 "' vcd at. the laboratory for experimental purposes arrives in log form. The logs are stored in the yard until 

 hf ii ?7?m .i! . V UP '" * 5peC ' a i el tr'callydnven sawmill into the proper sizes for testing. This log yard has probably had stored 

 in it Irom time to time more species of wood than any other log yard in the world. 



