74 



THE ST. LOUIS LUMBERMAN. 



supplied three million feet to this industry, and 

 much of it was made into beds for farm wagons 

 and the tops of business wagons. Beech is very 

 strong and stiff, and serves as automobile frames. 

 It serves likewise as felloes for very heavy wagons, 

 some preferring it to white oak because it shrivels 

 and swells less under seasonal changes, and tire* 

 are less likely to work loose. When extra large 

 spokes are required, white elm is sometimes used. 

 The hackberry reported was probably substituted 

 for ash, and the pecan for hickory. Sycamore is 

 made into shelving for bakers' wagons, because it 

 is easy to keep clean. Red gum was used for 

 sides and panels of coal wagons. Ash is occasion- 

 ally employed for the same purpose. Red gum 

 sideboards for farm wagons were reported, and the 

 small quantity of black spruce in the table was 

 used in the same way. Some of the manufactur- 

 ers made wagon tongues of red oak. Basswood 

 bends well and is valuable for panels. Hearse and 

 undertaker wagon manufacturers prefer this wood. 



Furniture. 



Although twenty woods contribute to the supply 

 of furniture material in Missouri, four-fifths of all 

 is supplied by four woods red gum, white oak, sil- 

 ver maple and red oak. Red gum is nearly half. 

 In no other industry is this wood so largely em- 

 ployed in imitation. When carefully selected it 

 passes without much staining for Circassian wal- 

 nut, and it may be printed to resemble maple and 

 oak. Silver maple also is printed to imitate oak; 

 and sweet birch passes for other woods, while yel- 

 low poplar takes the color of birch and is substi- 

 tuted for it. The art of finishing and staining wood 

 has been so perfected that almost any effect can 

 be produced to order, and the purchaser's tastes 

 can be satisfied. Some imitations are apparent 

 and deceive no one who examines them carefully; 

 but others are so skillfully executed that none but 

 an expert can separate the true from the false. 



Furniture makers have made a close study of 

 different woods and understand what each is best 

 suited for. Some give their best service as outside 

 material; others seldom so appear, but make the 

 inside, hidden parts. Where strength or hardness 

 is desirable, it is possible to select woods to fulfill 

 the conditions; if smoothness is wanted, rather 

 than figure or grain, there are woods of that kind. 

 There are white, sanitary woods, attractive in ap- 

 pearance and easily kept clean. Such material is 

 popular for kitchen and pantry furniture; and- 

 among woods of that kind are basswood, cotton- 

 wood, maple, ash, sycamore and yellow poplar. 

 Woods which wear smooth by sliding, one upon an- 

 other, are demanded by furniture manufacturers 

 for drawers and drawer slides, and for the slides 

 of extension tables. A wood which serves that 

 purpose well must be hard and have a fine grain. 

 Sugar maple, beech and birch fulfill the conditions. 

 Furniture of solid oak, mahogany, birch, walnut, 

 cherry or other handsome, costly woods is now 

 seldom made. The cost would be excessive, and 

 unless the material were long and carefully sea- 

 soned and the joining and fitting executed in the 

 most skillful manner, the heavy pieces of furni- 

 ture would be likely to warp out of shape, and pull 

 apart at the joinings. This danger is avoided by 

 using cores or backing of built-up veneers of soft- 

 woods or of the softer kinds of hardwoods. The 

 article of furniture, such as a chair, table, or chif- 

 fonier, is thus made of two parts, the inner frame 

 of cheap woods, and the outer visible part of thin 

 sheets of costly veneers glued upon the frame 

 work. Such a piece of furniture has the appear- 

 ance of being solid oak, walnut, or some other 

 handsome material, and the core of cheaper wood 

 nowhere appears. When deep carving is desired, 

 the outer wood must be thick enough to receive the 

 cutting. Occasionally a buyer insists on furniture 

 of solid oak, mahogany, or some other cabinet wood. 

 The manufacturer gives him what he wants, but 

 even then, in most cases, the furniture is built up 

 of veneers and overlays. In that case, if for ex- 

 ample, the wood is to be mahogany, the whole ar- 

 ticle, core as well as outside, is of the specified 

 wood and there is no deception as to material. 

 The manufacturer takes the extra trouble of build- 

 ing up the furniture instead of making it of thick, 

 solid pieces, because his reputation is at stake 

 and he knows that the built-up article is better. A 

 table top three inches thick of solid wood almost 

 invariably warps and checks, but if built of trans- 

 verse sheets of veneer, it stands time and weather, 

 changes, and retains its shape. Good backing or 

 cores for veneers should have but small tendency 

 to warp and twist. White pine is by many con- 

 sidered the ideal wOod for that purpose, but bass- 

 wood, cottonwood, chestnut, soft maple, and sev- 

 eral of the pines are satisfactory. 



One factory seldom makes all kinds of furni- 

 ture. The business is highly specialized. The 

 making of chairs is so distinct from furniture manu- 

 facturing in general that it is often regarded as a 

 separate industry. Further than that, chair fac- 

 tories are specialized. Some produce dining-room 

 chairs; opera and hall chairs are the exclusive 

 output of some; others manufacture pulpit chairs, 

 dentists chairs, barber chairs, or perhaps cheap 

 camp stools. The same practice obtains among 

 makers of other kinds of furniture. That which 

 is upholstered falls into a class; davenports, 

 lounges, and couches are sometimes the special 



HANDLES. 



TABLE VIII. 



Totals -19,641,000 



100.00 



18.39 $ 361,222 



Grown in 

 Missouri 

 feet 

 B. M. 

 6,602,500 

 1,287,500 

 1,750,000 

 770,000 

 310,000 



10,720,000 



Grown out 

 of Missouri 



35,000 

 22,000 



8,921,000 



product of a factory; bedroom suites, or even bed- 

 steads only, may constitute the output; and some 

 large establishments make only kitchen, dining- 

 room or porch furniture. All of these are brought 

 together in statistics shown for Missouri in Ta- 

 ble VII. 



It can be readily understood that all furniture 

 factories do not demand the same kinds of wood. 

 The maker of cheap camp stools has no use for 

 cherry, walnut, or mahogany; the manufacturer of 

 parlor pieces needs little elm, cottonwood, or pine, 

 except possibly as backing for veneer. In Missouri 

 the tops of kitchen tables are usually of basswood, 

 cottonwood, or soft maple. These are known as 

 sanitary woods; .they are easily kept clean. The 

 sapwood of red gum is liked for the bottoms and 

 backs of drawers, and elm and soft maple are also 

 so employed. A rather large amount of sycamore 

 is used, some high-class, other cheap. When quar- 

 ter-sawed it makes handsome table tops and carved 

 chair arms; the common grades go to kitchen tables 

 and the interiors of book cases, wardrobes, bureaus, 

 and cupboards. White elm is employed in carvings 

 for wardrobes, kitchen safes, and brackets. White 

 and red oak are so universally used in furniture 

 manufacture that almost every department of the 

 business owes something to them. The use of ma- 

 hogany for furniture in Missouri apears small; but 

 its place is supplied with imitation mahogany made 

 of birch, red gum, and yellow poplar. Red cedar 

 meets a demand for an aromatic wood as bottoms 

 for drawers in bureaus and chiffoniers, shelves and 

 backs of wardrobes, and as chests in which clothes 

 are stored. The belief is widespread, and has ex- 

 isted during generations, that the odor of red cedar 

 protects furs and clothes against moths, and other 

 injurious insects. At any rate, a pleasant odor is 

 imparted to clothing left for a considerable time in 

 contact with the wood. The real efficiency of cedar 

 in destroying insects is a matter on which opinion 

 differs. It does not appear that a scientific investi- 

 gation of the question has ever been made. The 

 opinion has prevailed during three hundred years 

 that a red cedar clothes chest is proof agaiinst 

 moths. The same opinion is held regarding the 

 incense cedar of California, the Port Orford cedar 

 of Oregon, and the one-seed juniper and mountain 

 juniper of western Texas. 



FURNITURE. 



little is used above the tree's butt cut. Toughness 

 and resiliency are the most essential properties. 

 There are other commodities into which the re- 

 mainder of the hickory tree may be worked, and 

 the waste is not necessarily excessive, though some 

 times it is not small. Articles made from hickory, 

 other than handles, are buggy spokes and rims, 

 shafts, poles, axles, sucker rods for pumping deep 

 wells, dowels, shewers, athletic goods, and many 

 more. Meat packers buy hickory cordwood for 

 smoking meat. If as much of a hickory tree is 

 worked up as is fit for one or more of these com- 

 modities, there will be little left to rot in the 

 woods. Sometimes, however, the hickory lumber- 

 ing is carried on in districts so far from transpor- 

 tation that only the choice parts of trees can be 

 taken out with profit. The principal hickory region 

 of Missouri is the southeastern part of the State, 

 and several large and many small operators are 

 located there. Not half of the hickory cut in Mis- 

 souri is converted into the finished products in the 

 State, but much is shipped elsewhere either in the 

 rough or in the partly manufactured form. 



Though hickory is the most important it is not 

 the only wood valuable to Missouri handle manu- 

 facturers. Two and a half million feet of white ash 

 are used. This wood is highly satisfactory as hand- 

 les for certain farm tools, particularly pitchforks, 

 rakes, hoes, and shovels. It is stiff, strong, and 

 moderately light. 



White oak is occasionally substituted for hickory 

 in railroad pick handles, and even for ax handles, 

 but for ax handles it lacks much of measuring up 

 to hickory. 



Much of the sugar maple and cypress in the table 

 was made into broom handles, and a small part of 

 the red gum was so used. 



Large numbers of small handles of various pat- 

 terns are turned out, and for some of them there is 

 not much choice of wood. Among handles of that 

 class are hand grips on bucket pails and on boxes 

 and packages. Red gum is largely used for that 

 commodity, and red oak and ash contribute to the 

 supply. There are gimlet, awl, auger, chisel, saw, 

 and other tool handles. Some are made from waste. 

 Whip handles are reported as a by-product of sad- 

 dle-tree factories, cut from pieces sawed out to give 



TABLE VII. 



Totals 28,165,550 



Less than 1/100 of 1 per cent. 



Handles. 



100.00 



27.05 



$ 761,852 



9,162,750 19,002,800 



The statistics in Table VIII, relative to the manu- 

 facture of handles, include many sizes, from han- 

 dles for gimlets and awls to those for cant hooks. 

 Seven woods figure in this business and nearly 

 twenty million feet are consumed. Hickory is the 

 most important, and white ash next. Most handles 

 require fairly high grades of wood, yet the average 

 prices paid are low. The apparent inconsistency is 

 easily explained by the fact that most handle woods 

 are bought in the log or billet form, and little work 

 has been done on them when they reach the fac- 

 tory. Some of the material does not pass through a 

 sawmill, and no sawyer's bill is included in the 

 cost. Billets are sometimes split in the woods and 

 go in the rough form to the handle maker or go in 

 the form of bolts. Sometimes they are rough-turned 

 before they go to the finishing factory. This holds 

 good for hickory chiefly, but some white oak and 

 white ash go through the splitting and rough-turn- 

 ing process. 



The bulk of the 14 million feet of hickory is made 

 into ax, pick, and sledge handles. Such handles 

 are 36 inches long, but the bolts are cut 40 inches 

 to allow for trimming the ends to rid them of sea- 

 Boning checks. Wood of that kind is measured by 

 the cord or rank and this is good for about 300 

 handles. A lathe makes 400 handles a day. In 

 selecting material for ax, pick, and hammer handles, 



shape to the saddle tree. They are of ash, maple, 

 oak, and hackberry. 



A by-product of handle factories is the dust from 

 the sanding belts. This is very fine particles of 

 wood, like flour, and it is bought by manufacturers 

 of floor-cleaning compounds, and dynamite. Some 

 of the finest dust is used for polishing silver ware. 



Fixtures. 



Fixtures are closely related to furniture. The 

 line separating the two industries is often difficult 

 of definition. Fixtures are generally made for a 

 particular room or place, while furniture is not so 

 restricted. Fixtures are adjuncts of banks, offices, 

 stores, saloons, balls, and hotels. They consist of 

 showcases, counters, presses, and cabinets, window 

 seats, wall benches, soda fountains, exhibition racks, 

 bars, fixed desks, shelving, and many others of 

 similar kind. They differ from interior finish which 

 is made fast to walls, ceiling, or floor, and can not 

 be removed without considerable injury to the finish 

 and the room. 



Fixtures are made in much the same way as furni- 

 ture; similar materials are used, and similar effects 

 are produced by selecting and grouping woods. 

 Veneers are as largely employed as in furniture, and 

 shelving and panels hold the relative place which 

 they occupy in furniture. In Missouri 28 woods 

 are reported in this industry, and four of them 



