966 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



white pine are the leaders. Chestnut is seventh on the 

 hst, but it is the leading hardwood, its nearest com- 

 petitor being oak. In 1909 91,766,000 chestnut shingles 

 were manufactured, which was three times that of all 

 the oaks combined. No other hardwood was important 

 enough for mention. The above figure presumably does 

 not include the large number of hand-made chestnut 

 shingles made in the Southern Appalachians. Chestnut 

 shingles are very durable and weather to an attractive 

 shade. Their chief disadvantage seems to be that the 

 tannin in the wood leaches out and in time rusts the 

 nails with which they are layed. It is also hard to get 



Courtesy Penna. Chestnut Blight Comrnissioit. 



MORTISED CHESTNUT FENCE POSTS 



A great deal of the blight-killed chestnut of Pennsylvan'a and adjoining 

 States is being used for this purpose. 



much chestnut shingle stock free from the worm holes 

 previously mentioned, and these cause them to leak. It 

 seems as though it ought to be possible to work up a mar- 

 ket for chestnut shingles to be used as side shingles on 

 cottages and suburban residences. Their attractive gray 

 color when weathered is as pleasing as white cedar, and 

 the supply is unlimited. The use of galvanized nail.s 

 should overcome one difficulty, and leakage through the 

 worm holes would not be important if shingles were 

 laid on sides instead of roofs. Chestnut shingles sell 

 locally for from $2.50 to $3.75 per thousand. 



GRADES AND PRICES 



Chestnut lumber is divided into two groups according 

 to whether or not it contains worm holes, since they are 

 liable to be found in wood of almost any quality. Vv^hile 

 these worm holes lower the grade, the wood itself is 



otherwise unaffected, .so that the wormy material is itself 

 divided into the same grades as the non-wormy. A list 

 of the grades and the wholesale prices per thousand feet 

 board measure for lumber produced at representative 

 southern mills for the first half of 1913 (when lumber 

 prices were more normal than at this writing) is as 

 follows : 



Firsts and seconds 4/4 $43.40 



No. 1 common 4/4 29.40 



No. 2 common and sound wormy 4/4. ... 13.20 

 No. 3 common 4/4 10.00 



The prices prevailing at the mills in the early part of 

 1913 for the various grades into which sound wormy is 

 sometimes divided were as follows : 



Firsts and seconds 4/4 $17.00 



Quarter sawed 4/4 16.50 



No. 1 common and. better 4/4 14.00 



No. 2 common 4/4 10.50 



No. 3 common 4/4 8.50 



At times sound wormy has averaged as high as $18.00 

 per thousand. The average mill run price at southern 

 mills at the period of the above quotations was $16.50. 

 Chestnut from the southern mills generally commands 

 higher prices than that produced by portable mills from 

 the woodlots of the North, chiefly because of its superior 

 manufacture and grading. 



The ten leading States in production are West Vir- 

 ginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Tennessee, Virginia, 

 North Carolina, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, 

 New York. With the exception of Connecticut and 

 Pennsylvania, the leaders are all in the Southern Appa- 

 lachians, where over 55 per cent of the total was pro- 

 duced. 



Despite its present supremacy, chestnut was long un- 

 recognized as an important producer of lumber. The 

 old lumbermen of the Appalachians took only the poplar 

 and the cream of the oak and basswood, but now opera- 

 tors are going back over the old cuttings and taking the 

 chestnut along with the rest of the other trees. 



CHESTNUT AS A NUT TREE 



Chestnuts whether roasted or in turkey dressing re- 

 quire no introduction. There are no statistics to show 

 how many bushels f chestnuts are marketed every fall, 

 but one has only to visit the produce houses in our large 

 cities at the proper season or, better still, the country 

 stores and express offices in the small towns in the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains to realize that it is large indeed, for 

 the bulk of the nuts on the market come from these 

 mountains. With the first frost, the women and children 

 seek the woods to collect the freshly fallen nuts, taking 

 them to the country stores, where they are sold or ex- 

 changed for other commodities. The storekeepers ship 

 them to market as speedily as possible, for there is always 

 a rush to get the earliest nuts in, since they command 

 the highest prices. As high as $3.00 per bushel is some- 

 times paid for the first arrivals. Later the price may 

 drop to almost nothing when the market will absorb no 

 more, but as winter approaches it rises again. Realizing 

 the value of the nuts, some of the mountaineer farmers 

 have selected suitable tracts of chestnut growth on 



