CHAPTER XVI 

 FUEL WOOD 



GENERAL 



WOOD furnishes fuel for a great variety of purposes. It is chiefly in 

 demand on farms and in small rural communities for general heating 

 purposes and for the preparation of food. It is also used as fuel in the 

 generation of electric and steam power, electric lighting, in the manu- 

 facture of brick, etc. Since wood is largely used on farms, it is prin- 

 cipally cut from woodlots and small holdings. Cordwood cut for fuel 

 also comes from material otherwise wasted, such as slabs from saw- 

 mills, tree tops, branches and defective material left on the ground after 

 logging operations, scrubby growth and inferior trees which are not in 

 demand for any other form of product. The fuel cutter does not take 

 what the sawmill or other wood using industries can use. If the demand 

 for fuel wood were doubled in this country it could be easily taken care 

 of without the use of good timber. Transportation is the chief problem 

 in the further utilization of fuel wood in this country. The larger 

 markets, aside from the farmers and the rural communities, are not in 

 close proximity to the principal fuel wood supply so that at the present 

 time enormous quantities of material are wasted and left to rot in the 

 woods due to prohibitive transportation charges. 



There is approximately as much wood used at the present time for 

 fuel as for lumber. It probably brings the lowest delivered market 

 price of wood in any form. Its use is decreasing in this country due to 

 the increasing introduction of the use of natural and artificial gas, coal, 

 electricity and fuel oil. There is much less wood used at the present 

 time for heat and power than formerly. In thirty years, the coal output 

 has multiplied 6 times and many new natural gas and oil wells have been 

 developed. 



The war greatly stimulated the use of wood fuel, particularly in 

 1918 and 1919, when there was a shortage of coal. 



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