COMMERCIAL USES OF WHITE ASH 



1085 



Courtesy The Hardwood Record 



LARGEST ASH LOG IX THK WORLD 



It is forty-five feet long, measures fifty-one inches in diameter at the big end and thirty-five at the smaller. It is owned by the Southern Hard- 

 wood Company and was exhibited in the Industrial Parade at Nashville. 



tent was stretched over them. Before railroads were built 

 and such wagons carried freight long distances, the mer- 

 chandise was kept dry by the goodness of the canvas 

 cover and the reliability of the bows. One such wagon 

 route led from Baltimore, Maryland, to Knoxville, Ten- 

 nessee, and another from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. 

 The wagons on their long journeys usually went in cara- 

 vans of from five to thirty. 



In 1750 Peter Kalm, the Swedish traveler, saw the 

 Swedes and Finlanders of New Jersey making bowls 

 and dishes of what he called "ash knobs," 

 and he wrote of it as though it was a 

 common practice among them. The cus- 

 tom was not confined to New Jersey. 

 The wood selected was a burl varying in 

 size from a quart measure to two gallons 

 or more. The interlaced and contorted 

 fibers prevented the wood from checking 

 or splitting. The bowls were generally 

 made by hand, a rather slow and labo- 

 rious process, but Joseph Dodderidge 

 wrote of their manufacture about 1780 

 near the Ohio River as though they were 

 sometimes made on a lathe. An ash 

 bowl of the primitive kind is in the Han- 

 cock House collection at Lexington, 

 Massachusetts. If it is a fair sample 

 they were very crude utensils. 



Ash is preeminently a factory wood. 

 The annual sawmill output is approxi- 

 mately 250,000,000 feet, and nearly all 

 of it goes to mills and shops to be further 

 manufactured. The largest factory de- 



mand is in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, 

 Missouri and Arkansas. From 45 to 50 per cent of the 

 entire cut of lumber in the country is converted into 

 manufactured commodities in these five states. The 

 articles are so numerous and of so many kinds that they 

 can be treated only as classes. Almost every industry 

 that use s wood in considerable quantity finds place for 

 more or less ash. It is reliable in whatever position it is 

 placed. Manufacturers in Michigan list it as material 

 in !)2 articles and it is listed for 90 in Illinois. 



Courtesy Dudley Lumber Company. 



ASH LOGS RKADY FOR THE MILL 



he annual output of the sawmills is about 2.'i0,OOO,0nO feet and nearly all of it goes to mills 

 and shops to be further manufactured. Almost every industry that uses wood in quantity 

 finds place for more or less white ash. 



