44 



THE SOUTHERN LUMBERMAN 



The oaks are seldom used for boxes, except where 

 extra strength Is wanted, and weight Is of minor 

 consideration. It is true that nearly a million feet 

 of white and yellow oak are listed in the table, but 

 most of it was crates. Oak's strength creates a 

 demand for it; but it is heavy and it nails poorly. 

 A study of each wood separately in the table would 

 probably fail to show reasons why all are there, 

 except that some are cheap and convenient, but 

 others have special properties which give them a 

 place whether they are convenient or not. 



About one-fourth of the box material comes from 

 other states, and cottonwood is imported in largest 

 amounts and shortleaf pine next. No wood comes 

 wholly from other states, and that which is brought 

 in comes solely because it is more convenient to 

 procure it there than in Tennessee. Most of the 

 imports come from Arkansas and Missouri. 



Furniture. 



The manufacturers of Tennessee have entered 

 into the furniture business in a serious way. They 

 are competing successfully with all comers and 

 their product reaches markets far from the places 

 of manufacture. The state is still below North 

 Carolina in the total quantity made, but it produces 

 nearly three times as much as Kentucky. The 

 abundance of good furniture material in the forests 

 of the state, and in those within reach, give ad- 

 vantages which the Tennessee manufacturers are 

 making the most of. They procure about two-thirds 

 of their furniture wood in the state, and it costs 

 them on an average $22.34 per thousand feet. 

 North Carolina furniture makers buy their raw ma- 

 terial cheaper than that ($18.23'), but most other 

 states pay more Massachusetts, $28.36; Illinois, 

 $39.09; Maryland, $29.32; Wisconsin, $25.22, and 

 Kentucky, $30.73. More than nine-tenths of Ten- 

 nessee's furniture material shown in Table 4 is 

 hardwood. The number of species used is large, 

 and only two, longleaf and mahogany, come wholly 

 from without the state, and mahogany is the only 

 foreign wood in the table. The extraordinarily 

 high cost of this wood was doubtless due to the 

 small amount purchased and its high grade. Ma- 

 hogany lumber usually costs about half the figure 

 given in the table, but sometimes double or three- 

 fold that for extra fine figured wood. 



A rather large quantity of red cedar is listed 

 in Table 4. This wood has been used for fur- 

 niture in this country since the first settlements on 

 the Virginia coast. Some of the earliest records 

 speak of the odor of the wood and of the favor in 

 which it was held on that account. One of the 

 important uses for it has always been for clothes 

 chests and wardrobes. The belief has long pre- 

 vailed that its odor drives moths and other In- 

 sects away from clothing and prevents injury from 

 that source. Large numbers of clothes chests are 

 still sold every year to persons who believe the 

 odor is offensive to insects. It is not known that 

 any carefully conducted investigation has been 

 made to determine red cedar's value in that re- 

 spect. The most that can be said for it is that 

 for three hundred years the belief has been com- 

 mon among people acquainted with the wood that 

 clothes stored in cedar boxes and wardrobes are 

 immune from insect attacks. Some of the Western 

 cedars, particularly Port Orford and incense cedar, 

 have the same reputation, and sassafras is not much 

 behind them in reputed efficiency. It does not ap- 

 pear that any sassafras was used for furniture last 

 year in Tennessee. It was once highly esteemed 

 for bedsteads because of the belief that it contrib- 

 uted to the soundness of sleep by keeping trouble- 

 some nocturnal insects away. 



Many kinds and patterns of sash are demanded by 

 the building trades, and an establishment may turn 

 out but one or two kinds. 'Millwork is so broad 

 a term that it covers a miscellaneous group of 

 commodities that cannot be designated by any 

 name more appropriate. Among the principal things 

 included may be named stairwork, including balus- 

 ters, railing, steps and newel posts; interior trim 

 or finish, consisting in part of picture molding, base- 

 boards, chair boards, panels, brackets, capitals, 

 ornaments and shelving in niches and cubbyholes; 

 porch columns and railing with spindles and lattice 

 work, and many other kinds of dressed building 

 material. The differences between the output rep- 

 resented in Table 5 and that classed as planing 

 mill products and included in Table 2 are clear 

 enough in general outline, but in details there must 

 be more or less overlapping. The flooring, ceiling 

 and siding of Table 2 is made according to gen- 

 eral patterns, and is not usually manufactured for 

 particular persons or markets; while much of the 

 class of millwork belonging in Table 5 is made to 

 order. A man may want finish of a special kind, 

 wood or design for a house and gives the order for 

 it, and the mill turns it out. A stair of unusual de- 

 sign or a portico, hallway, or suite of rooms re- 

 quires millwork out of the ordinary, and such can- 

 not be bought in the open market and must be 

 made to order. General planing mills which pro- 

 duce flooring, siding and ceiling are usually, though 

 not always, run in connection with a saw mill. The 

 door and sash factory is not, but procures its raw 

 material in the open market or has it sawed under 

 contract. The machine in a plant of that kind must 

 be designed for a greater variety of work than the 

 simple ones in a planing mill which make only a 

 few staple articles. 



from outside the state and was cheaper than chest- 

 nut. Red gum does not occupy a high place to 

 judge by the small quantity and the low price. 

 It is in less demand for interior finish in Ten- 

 nessee, where it grows abundantly, than in states 

 farther north where it does not grow at all. As 

 much red gum is made into interior finish in Wis- 

 consin as in Tennessee, and it costs nearly $4 a 

 thousand more there. Illinois manufacturers 

 bought twenty times as much and paid $30.13 for 

 it. The use of only 20,000 feet of red cedar for 

 interior finish in Tennessee emphasizes the great 

 change in the use of this wood for houses in that 

 region. It has been said that half of the pioneer 

 cabins of Tennessee were of red cedar, but that 

 estimate probably applied to certain regions only. 

 The whole quantity employed in house building last 

 year in Tennessee, as shown by data compiled for 

 this report, was hardly enough to make one modest 

 cottage. 



White pine's place seems very insignificant in 

 this industry, only 10,000 feet, or about what a small 

 factory can work up in a day. It is among the best 

 woods in this country for sash, doors and blinds; 

 and its cost as shown in the table does not indicate 

 that high price cut it out. Millions of feet of 

 chestnut, cypress and yellow poplar were bought 

 at higher prices. It would not seem that door and 

 sash manufacturers in Tennessee are getting the 

 most out of their opportunities as long as they 

 fail to make a specialty of white pine in producing 

 their commodities. The saw mills of Tennessee 

 turned out 39,000,000 feet of white pine lumber in 

 1910, and a little more than one foot to 4,000 found 

 its way to the door and blind factories which ought 

 i.o have had a large part of it. 



SASH, DOORS, BLINDS, AND I.IM II\I. MIM.WORK. 

 Table 5. 



Less than 1-100 of 1 per cent. 



Shortleaf pine leads all others by long odds in 

 millwork and constitutes nearly 40 per cent of all, 

 though twenty-two woods are in use. Ten of the 

 15,000,000 feet are imported, chiefly from Arkansas 

 and Missouri. It comes from that region because 

 it is convenient. Some preference is shown the 

 pine from those states because it is of excellent 

 quality. The wood is white, soft and of good figure. 

 Most of it goes to manufacturers in Western Ten- 

 nessee because of their proximity to the source of 

 supply; while the eastern part of the state depends 

 on home-grown shortleaf, or procures it from states 

 further south. 



Average 



cost per 



1,000ft 



$17.88 



35.06 



33.42 



30.28 



23.78 



16.35 



21.66 



25.68 



31.74 



in. on 



31.06 

 17.86 

 15.00 

 39.49 

 53.21 

 14.83 

 l.vnn 

 33.75 



I'll 00 



14.00 



24.67 



188.00 



$23.87 



Total 



cost f. o. b. 



factory 



$ 271.906 



154,600 



121,465 



109,055 



82,936 



49.862 



62,425 



16,950 



19,200 



3.800 



6.150 



2.875 



1,500 



2,685 



3,565 



890 



?r,o 



675 

 200 

 140 

 74 

 470 



$ 912,173 



Grown in 



Tennessee 



feetB. M. 



4,886,500 



1,360,000 



'2,'85'l',r>66 

 2,617,500 



285,000 



230.000 



200,000 



98,000 



161,000 



100,000 



8,000 



17,000 



60,000 



50,000 



20,000 



10.000 



10,000 



3,000 



14,924,000 



Grown 



out of 



Tennessee 



feetB. M. 



10,322,000 



3,050,000 



3,635.000 



750.000 



599,000 



3,049,000 



925,000 



375,000 



375,000 



]00,000 



fiO.OOO 

 50.000 



2,500 



23,292,500 



Less than 1-100 of 1 per cent. 



Sash, Doors, Blinds and General Millwork. 

 The articles manufactured from woods listed in 

 Table 5 are too many to be enumerated separately, 

 but they belong to groups and are shown in that 

 way. It seldom happens that one factory makes all 

 of them. It may devote all its energies to doors, 

 and probably to a single grade or class of doors. 



Total 



cost f. o. b. 



factory 



$ 196,595 



360.375 



219,720 



26,184 



15,895 



12,200 



10,130 



11,939 



3,651 



3,750 



2,632 



2,017 



2,500 



1,661 



2,950 



1,000 



760 



800 



462 



390 



360 



5i50 



160 



400 



150 



$ 877,221 



Grown in 



Tennessee 



feet B. M. 



6,000,000 



9.385,000 



7,243,000 



1,017,000 



280,000 



Vio',666 



-474,000 



269,000 

 50.000 



107,000 

 1,000 



100,000 

 62,000 

 80.000 

 50.000 

 50,000 

 50,000 

 25,000 

 20,000 

 20,000 

 15,000 

 10,000 

 10,000 



25,628,000 



Grown 

 out of 



Tennessee 



feet B. M. 



7.510,000 



2,659.000 



1,900,000 



20,000 



375,000 



fioO.OOO 



300,000 



]00,000 



Yo 0.666 



30,000 



500 

 13,644,500 



Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina grow most 

 of the chestnut used in Tennesse and shown in 

 Table 5. The state forests meet about one-third 

 of the demand, yet Tennessee is not surpassed by 

 any state in the annual cut of chestnut or in the 

 quality. The average high cost of the wood is 

 proof that grades are high. Cypress came wholly 



Vehicles and Vehicle Parts. 



This industry is large in the aggregate, but it 

 is made up of many small shops in all parts of the 

 state and a few large factories. Almost every vil- 

 lage has a shop which makes or repairs wagons 

 though the number of such vehicles in a year is 

 small for each. In collecting statistics for this re- 

 port it was not practicable to include all blacksmith 

 shops in rural districts, though some of them occa- 

 sionally make or mend vehicles, but the larger 

 shops and factories were included. Constant care 

 was necessary to avoid counting the same ma- 

 terial more than once. Vehicle making is peculiar 

 in that some of the wood passes through two or 

 more factories before it appears in finished form. 

 One may rough-turn the spokes, and another finish 

 them; hubs may be partly made in one factory 

 and completed in another. The same comment 

 applies to different parts of vehicles, both wagons 

 and buggies. Carriage bodies may be made in a 

 shop which turns out bodies only. Sometimes parts 

 made in various places are assembled by a factory, 

 and a complete vehicle is turned out, though the 

 work was done in several places. Conditions like 

 these do not exist in many industries, and vehicle 

 making is peculiar in that respect. Hickory is 

 the most important wood in the quantity used, but 

 several others are higher in cost. The most costly 

 is osage orange, which is used for farm wagon 

 felloes. The price is figured on the finished pieces, 

 ready for use. after all work has been done and 

 all waste eliminated. Wagons with felloes of that 

 wood give best service on sandy roads in dry re- 

 gions. For very strong, large felloes beech is pre- 

 ferred to nearly all other woods. Yellow poplar, 

 which is third highest in price in this industry, 

 is made into carriage bodies. It finishes very well, 

 takes high polish, and it holds paint. The small 

 lot of black walnut was made into fine carriage 

 finish. 



Car Construction. 



Nine woods make up the material employed in 

 car construction and repair in Tennessee, accord- 

 ing to Table 7. The number of woods is small, 

 but the total quantity of lumber is fairly large. 

 The car factories of Illinois reported the use of 

 thirty-three woods, and a total amount of 407,- 

 333,000 feet, at an average cost of $30.44 a thousand. 



