THE USES OF WOOD 



1213 



SHOOKS READY FOR SHIPMENT 



A barrel consists of three parts, the staves, the 

 heading and the hoops. That is true for all 

 wooden barrels whether they are for dry com- 

 modities or for liquids. The bundled material 

 sufficient for one barrel is called a shook. It is 

 much cheaper to ship a shook than the barrel 

 after it has been set up and completed as a 

 barrel. 



ooo; all other, 13,250,000; total, 341,- 

 250,000. 



Only the best wood is used as bar- 

 rels for alcoholic liquors; but some 

 other woods will do for other kinds 



A BUNG BORING MACHINE 



Coopers have machines for nearly everything 

 they do. The boring of bungs is shown in the 

 above picture. The machine is designed to "bore 

 and bush" in the same operation. The boring 

 is a particular piece of work and if it is not 

 done exactly right there will be trouble with 

 leaks later when the barrels are filled with beer. 

 Hand boring is apt to be defective. 



of liquors, such as brine for pork, 

 vinegar for pickles, and for certain 

 oils. 



Tight barrels are of several sizes. 

 The strongest, heaviest staves are 

 for beer barrels and kegs. The 

 staves are manufactured by sev- 

 eral different processes and are 

 named accordingly, as sawed, hew- 

 ed, and bucked and split. The tight 

 cooperage industry is well distribut- 

 ed over the country but is more im- 

 portant in some sections than in 

 others, depending largely upon the 

 available supply of suitable timber 

 in the various parts of the country. 

 The leading states in annual pro- 

 duction of tight staves are here 

 given : 



Arkansas, 87,582,000; Kentucky, 

 45,694,000; West Virginia, 40,402,- 

 000; Mississippi, 39,052,000; Ten- 

 nessee, 35,744,000; Ohio, 26,534,- 

 000; Missouri, 22,420,000. 



The waste of wood in the manu- 

 facture of tight staves in the past 

 has been very great, but it is not 

 now so great as formerly, because 

 utilization is closer, and material 

 which would have been thrown 

 away formerly is now converted 

 into other products. Much of the 

 finest oak of the country was cut 

 for staves in past years. The 

 makers of this commodity went 

 ahead of lumbermen in new terri- 

 tory, and being first in the oak re- 

 gion, they naturally selected the best 

 oak trees, took the choicest portions 

 of the trunks, and rejected the rest. 

 They made no attempt to use 

 wood which did not split well, and 

 the stave maker's verdict: "It 

 won't rive," was final and consigned 

 the tree to the waste heap. It meant 

 the abandonment of an oak trunk 

 which might contain 3,000 or even 

 5,000 feet of lumber. That does 

 not often occur now, for a sawmill 

 is usually within reach and what 

 cannot be split for staves can be 

 sawed for lumber, or the logs may 

 be sent to a mill equipped to saw 

 staves or heading. 



It was once a common situation 

 in forests where stave makers were 

 operating for the ground to be cov- 

 ered with . refuse billets and bolts 

 which were left to rot because they 



EXAMPLE OF TIGHT COOPERAGE 



The barrel here shown illustrates the class of 

 cooperage known as tight. The barrels are in- 

 tended to hold liquids. Not only must the joints 

 be leak-proof, but the wood must not permit 

 seepage through the pores. This barrel is of 

 white oak, which is the highest grade of wood 

 for tight cooperage. 



were not just what the operator want- 

 ed. The workmen had no compunction 

 when they left on the ground enough 

 oak to make a thousand staves. Good 

 trees were plentiful, and the stave 

 makers turned their backs upon heaps 

 of slightly defective bolts and went to 

 work with their axes to fell other 



A BARREL TRUSSER AT WORK 



Machines have been devised and perfected for 

 doing most parts of barrel making. The hand 

 workman formerly did it all, from felling the 

 tree to finishing the barrel, but appliances have 

 been invented which need only to be set in 

 motion and directed by the brain of man, and 

 they will do the rest. 



