Vol. XVI 



JUNE, igio 



No. 6 



A FORWARD STEP IN FOREST 

 CONSERVATION 



By WM. L, HALL 

 In Charge Branch of Products, Forest Service 



AN ADVANCE in forest conserva- 

 tion is realized in the establish- 

 ment at Madison, Wis., of a thor- 

 oughly equipped wood-testing labora- 

 tory. ' Established on a cooperative 

 basis by the Forest Service and the 

 University of Wisconsin, the labora- 

 tory will be formally opened on June 4 

 with appropriate exercises. The pres- 

 ence of representatives of the lumber 

 industry and of practically all the wood- 

 consuming industries will make the oc- 

 casion an auspicious event. 



What is the need of such a labora- 

 tory? Of what value will its work be 

 that it should be assigned an important 

 place in the program for forest con- 

 servation ? 



Since the report of the National Con- 

 servation Commission we have had bet- 

 ter information than ever before on the 

 waste that occurs in harvesting the for- 

 est and in using its products. It was 

 shown that so far as the tree is cut up 

 into sawn products the waste is about 

 two-thirds, if the bark and small 

 branches be included. Let us look a 

 little into the detail of this matter. It 

 is important. 



The wood which we cut down in tin- 

 forest each year, if compacted together, 

 would form a solid cube one-half mile 

 square. It is taken from the forest by 

 many industries. The lumber industry 



takes forty-two per cent, cordwood 

 thirty-two per cent, fence posts nine per 

 cent, hewed railroad ties seven per cent, 

 cooperage and pulpwood each two per 

 cent. In manufacturing sawn lumber 

 and its use by the industries, about 

 sixty-seven per cent of the wood which 

 grew in the tree is lost. In cordwood 

 the loss is as low as five per cent, and 

 in posts and rails it is only twenty per 

 cent. In hewed cross-ties, however, the 

 waste runs to seventy per cent, none 

 of which can be used ; and in cooperage 

 stock waste reaches the enormous figure 

 of seventy-eight per cent. Taking these 

 several items which together take 

 ninety-four per cent of the wood in the 

 forest, we find that their combined waste 

 amounts to thirty-eight per cent of the 

 total. It is apparent, then, that consid- 

 ering the total amount of wood used, 

 the waste approximates forty per cent, 

 or two-fifths. 



To aid in saving this vast waste is 

 the work of one entire branch of the 

 Forest Service, the Branch of Products, 

 and it is the direct purpose of the For- 

 est Products Laboratory. 



rUKVHH'S TKSTS HAVE BEEN USEFUL 



Now, the value of laboratory work 

 in the economical use of wood has al- 

 ready been fully tested by the Forest 



32.7 



