34 OUR VANISHING FORESTS 



of little mills scattered about nearer at hand. The 

 utilization of by-products in Norway and Sweden is 

 carried to a fine point, a large pile of sawdust being 

 there considered worth several thousand dollars. 

 An American lumber manufacturer in Louisiana or 

 Oregon, however, would regard such an accumula- 

 tion as a liability rather than as an asset and might 

 even be willing to pay good money to dispose of it. 

 A similar product of special importance is excel- 

 sior, which, although merely thin curled shavings or 

 shreds of wood, is no such plebeian material as one 

 might at first suppose. Basswood is the aristocrat 

 of the excelsior trade, but, because of its limited 

 quantity, it furnishes only a comparatively small 

 proportion of the supply. None of the better 

 grades can be manufactured from gummy pines or 

 from any wood with either a disagreeable odor or 

 too brittle characteristics. Excelsior is best known 

 as a packing material capable of protecting even the 

 most delicate glass, but it fills a variety of needs 

 from stuffing for mattresses and cheap automobile 

 upholstery to the making of a kind of twisted rope 

 used in the cast iron pipe industry. A very high 

 grade of finely shaven excelsior known as "wood 

 wool," can be used even for filtering purposes. 

 This refined product ranges from one-sixtieth to one 

 five-hundredth of an inch in thickness, and is about 



