OF VIRGINIA 



55 



buckets were made from white oak with bottom's of ash, while the 

 veneer cut from tupelo and black gum served as the material from which 

 butter trays, lard dishes, and wooden plates were made. More than 

 two-thirds of all the basswood used in the State went to factories 

 listed under this industry and was made into calendar strips. Of all 

 the American woods, white pine meets the largest demand for matches. 

 It is significant therefore, that the match manufacturers in Virginia 

 use no white pine but instead consume large quantities of basswood 

 and the white wood of yellow poplar. 



TABLE 14. WOODENWARE AND MATCHES. 



EXCELSIOR 



Excelsior makers in Virginia used only two species of wood and 

 they both belong to the same family, they were scrub pine and loblolly 

 pine. Except for boxes, this was the principal use accorded to scrub 

 pine and ten per cent of the total used for manufacture in the State 

 went into this commodity. The raw material was purchased in the 

 form of bolts and reported in terms of cords. To make this table com- 

 parable with the others, and to enable the statistician to include it and 

 the items of it in the summary tables, the cords were reduced to board 

 feet measure and the prices changed to correspond. The price paid for 

 wood demanded by the excelsior makers was the lowest average cost 

 of any of the material delivered to any other of the industries. 



The manufacture of excelsior in Virginia is confined to the section 

 in the northeastern part of the State. Here the stands of scrub pine 

 and young second growth loblolly are quite abundant. It may be that 

 some old-field shortleaf pine is included in these figures reported for 

 scrub pine, as in this section of the State the three species are found 

 growing associated, but the shortleaf appears only in scattered stands. 



In the take States and the New England States, aspen, or popple, 



