1210 



AMKRICAN FORESTRY 



duction, better utilization of the wood is secured. The 

 coopers use the waste from the sawmill. Short and 

 defective logs can be worked into staves and heading. 

 Michigan leads all other states in slack cooperage pro- 

 duction. 



In the production of hoops, Ohio leads all other states, 

 and is followed in the order named by Indiana, Michigan, 

 Missouri, and 

 Arkansas. 

 Woods suitable 

 for hoops are 

 not so numer- 

 ous as those 

 for staves and 

 heading. 

 Toughness and 

 strength are es- 

 sential in hoop 

 woods, for the 

 hoop must 

 bend without 

 breaking. Fol- 

 lowing is a list 

 of hoop woods 

 and the annual 

 outputof hoops 

 from each in 

 the United 

 States : 



Elm, 339,- 

 477,000 ; red 

 gum, 9,877,- 

 000 ; pine, 8,- 

 321,000; birch 

 6,051,000; 

 beech, 3,560,- 

 000 ; ash 2,020,- 

 000; oak 1,160,- 

 000 ; maple, 

 731,000 ; 

 spruce, 106,- 

 000; bass wood, 

 30,000 ; cedar, 

 5,000. 



Though 

 these figures 

 were published 

 under govern- 

 ment authority, 

 those purport- 

 ing to give the 

 production of 

 pine hoops 

 have been 

 questioned by manufacturers who do not believe that so 

 many pine hoops are made. The unfitness of pine for 

 hoops throws suspicion on the figures. 



Two styles of wooden hoops are in use, the coiled and 

 the straight. The coiled hoop is manufactured from logs, 



WHITE FIR KEG FOR SHIPPING GRAPES 



This product, both container and contained, is of California origin. The packing for the grapes is redwood 

 sawdust instead of cork dust which is used in Spain in packing grapes for export. Large numbers of 

 fir kegs are required by the shippers of grapes from the Pacific Coast to the eastern states and to foreign 

 countries. Photograph by courtesy of the California Barrel Company. 



the wood being elm almosl exclusively; and the straight 

 hoop may be so made, or it may be shaved from little 

 saplings called hoop poles, each large enough for one or 

 two hoops. If two hoops are made from the pole, it is 

 first split down the center and a hoop is shaved from each 

 half. The making of hoops from hoop poles was one of 

 the earliest wood-using industries of America, and the 



history of the 

 business would 

 read like a 

 romance, 

 though it deals 

 with no very 

 startling events. 

 Some of the 

 earliest hoops 

 made in this 

 country bound 

 fish casks in 

 New England, 

 tar barrels in 

 the Carolinas, 

 and tobacco 

 hogs heads in 

 Virginia and 

 Maryland. . A 

 number of 

 woods were 

 available for 

 this commodi- 

 ty. In New 

 England the 

 long, pliant 

 whips of white 

 or old field birch 

 (Betula popn- 

 U folia) were 

 the best, and 

 most of them 

 still wore the 

 bark on one 

 side when they 

 went on the 

 barrel or keg. 

 Further south 

 hickory held 

 its ground 

 r.s a hoop pole 

 wood against 

 all rivals; and 

 very early in 

 Virginia's his- 

 tory a writer 

 sou nded the 

 warning that so many choice young hickories were being 

 made into hoops for tobacco hogsheads, that future 

 hickory forests would suffer. Frequently thirty or forty 

 hoops were used on one hogshead ; not all at once, but it 

 was the custom to cut off the hoops and expose the tobacco 



