26 OUR VANISHING FORESTS 



cooperage are either sawn or cut from green elm 

 wood and appear as perfectly straight strips until 

 boiled and placed in a coiling machine. Each of 

 these component parts, having been manufactured 

 in small or portable plants near the supply of the 

 proper kind of wood, is then shipped to an assem- 



The various steps in pencil making. 



bly plant near the point where the barrels will be 

 used. 



The manufacture of tight cooperage consumes 

 about fifteen per cent, of all the white oak cut in 

 the country. Although hardwood staves are sawed 

 rather than sheared to the proper form, the opera- 

 tion is very wasteful, about sixty per cent, of the 

 material being lost in the shaping and close fitting 

 necessary. In order to obtain greater strength flat 



