OF VIRGINIA 



49 



Their stumpage value is lower than any other Virginia timber and 

 the cost of cutting them into veneer by a rotary process is the most 

 economical and entails less waste, it is claimed, than the manufacture 

 of logs in any other form]. The products of tihis industry, therefore, 

 can be sold at a very moderate cost, and accounts for the rapidly 

 growing custom of marketing provisions in individual packages. 



A large amount of the wood consumed in this industry is for 

 making veneer barrels. In Virginia, they are used principally for 

 trunk and oyster barrels, though the manufacturers made them to 

 sell out of the State where they are used as lime barrels and for 

 packing and shipping queensware, glassware, and other fragile goods. 

 The Bureau of the Census mentions in their discussion of the statis- 

 tics of slack cooperage production for 1910, that the noted decline in 

 the quantity of staves and heading manufactured was probably largely 

 due to the competition of the veneer barrel, which, being cheaper, has. 

 taken the place of the slack barrel for many uses. Other commodi- 

 ties made by this industry include baskets of all kinds, crates, cups, 

 tills, hoppers, and venders' trays. 



Red gum was the principal wood reported. More of it was used 

 than the combined amounts of the other six species. Black gum, 

 next in importance in the table, was composed both of the water gum 

 and the upland black gum. Owing to the confusion in the local names 

 of gum and the difficulty in distinguishing them from tupelo, the 

 figures shown in the table for black gum may include a portion of 

 tupelo. The quantities of tupelo reported were one-third less than 

 black gum. Soft elm was used for hoops on veneer barrels and small 

 quantities of chestnut cut thin were called on to serve as bottoms of 

 cabbage crates. 



TABLE 10. BASKETS AND FRUIT AND VEGETABLE PACKAGES. 



