4 BULLETIISr 50C_, V. S. DEPAETMEXT OF AGRICULTURE. 



METHOD OF COMPILATION. 



The collection of reports, mostl}'' by mail, was continued until tlie 

 last of April, 1916. At that time, with reports from 16,815 mills of 

 an aggregate cut in 1915 of 31,241,734,000 board feet as a basis, the 

 Forest Service computed the total cut of lumber in 1915 to be 37,011,- 

 656,000 board feet by 29,951 mills assumed to have been active. Al- 

 though these figures were arrived at by a process of computation 

 based on known facts, it is possible that the results are too conserva- 

 tive. In all, there may have been 33,000 or 34,000 mills active. If 

 this was the case, practically all of the additional mills were of the 

 smallest class, cutting on an average less than 200,000 board feet each. 

 The total cut of these mills might have amounted to nearly a billion 

 feet, and it is therefore possible that the grand total lumber cut in 

 1915 was 38,000,000,000 feet. 



As reports from the big mills came in, the Forest Service issued a 

 cumulative series of comparisons of the 1915 and 1914 production of 

 identical mills cutting 5,000,000 board feet or over in either year, in- 

 cluding mills idle one year but not mills cutting out. Since such 

 mills cut 65 per cent of the total lumber production, data on their 

 operations are significant in showing the trend of production. The 

 final comparison resulted in the following figures representing per 

 cents of increase or decrease in 1915 as compared with 1914 in re- 

 spective States, in the cut of the largest mills : 



state. 



Arkansas 



Oklahoma 



Texas 



Louisiana 



Mississippi 



Alabama 



Georgia 



Florida 



South Carolina 



North Carolina 



Virginia 



Southern pine States 



West Virginia 



Kentucky 



Tennessee 



Missouri 



Minnesota 



Wisconsin 



Michigan 



Num- 



Increase 



ber of 



or de- 



mills. 



crease. 





Per cent. 



72 



- 4 



5 



+ 21 



69 



+ 2 



168 



- 3 



102 



— 7 



49 



— 1 



37 



_ 1 



65 



— 1 



37 



+ 17 



80 





35 







719 



- 3 



65 



- 9 



19 



-10 



29 



-24 



12 



-28 



37 



-21 



75 



-13 



77 



-20 



1 



State. 



Peimsylvania , 



New York 



New Hampshire and Massachu- 

 setts 



Maine 



Centraland Northern States 



Washington 



Oregon 



CaUfornia 



Idaho 



Montana 



Colorado and South Dakota 



Arizona 



New Mexico 



AVestern States 



All above States 



Num- 

 ber of 

 mills. 



390 



149 

 64 

 51 

 25 

 12 

 3 

 4 



313 



Increase 

 or de- 

 crease. 



Per cent. 

 + 8 

 - 3 



+ 29 



+ 1 



14 



+ 5 

 -10 

 -10 



- 5 

 



- 4 



- 3 

 + 3 



Results were compiled according to the classes of mills indicated 

 on page 7. Eight hundred and twenty-one class 5 mills reported a 

 total cut of 20,225,449,000 feet. About 100 of these cut somewhat 

 less than 10,000,000 feet in 1914, and so were class 4 that year. How- 



