UTILIZATION OF BLACK WALNUT. 43 



disfavor for this use, probably because of the mistaken idea that the 

 dark sawdust is not clean. Slabs and edgings are useful only for 

 fuel and are generally burned in the steam boilers. At some mills 

 located near large cities a good trade has been started up in walnut 

 cordwood. This waste, together with pieces too low in grade or 

 too small in size to be merchantable, is usually sold by the wagonload 

 for about $1.25 or $1.50 a load, which is equivalent to about $3.50 a 

 cord. Much very low-grade and defective lumber that is marketable 

 in normal times has not been salable because of the large ac- 

 cumulations made during the war. This class of material may be 

 in demand for cheap and low-grade lumber when such stocks become 

 less plentiful. A vast quantity of small sound portions of walnut 

 accumulated in the process of manufacturing gunstock blanks from 

 the flitch, and from these portions many clear pieces may be cut. 

 Some of this stock has been disposed of to manufacturers of such 

 small novelties as air rifles, but the market is limited, and immense 

 piles of this material must be used for fuel. (PL IV, fig. 2.) 



Some mills convert their low-grade and small-dimension material 

 into dimension stock. This, however, does not seem to be generally 

 successful with walnut, on account of the large number of sizes de- 

 manded, and these can not be produced without considerable waste. 

 Manufacturers complain that for carefully manufactured clear stock 

 they receive much less than for No. 1 common lumber ; whereas they 

 should receive a price equal to that of the firsts and seconds grade. 

 Factory managers claim, on the other hand, that much waste in the 

 use of dimension stock is caused by too close cutting to the finished 

 size, by warping and checking, and by the presence of serious defects 

 which can not be cut out. Theoretically, the manufacture of low- 

 grade material into dimension sizes should be a success economically, 

 provided the sizes are made to meet factory requirements. Thus, be- 

 fore the war, a chair factory would purchase No. 1 common black- 

 walnut lumber for, say, $65 a thousand, kiln-dry it for approximately 

 $6, and cut it up at a cost of $10 to $15 a thousand, making a total 

 cost of about $83. Since the average waste in manufacture amounts 

 to about 25 per cent, the original thousand board feet would be re- 

 duced to about 750 board feet. This would make the material cost 

 11 cents a board foot, or $110 a thousand, after it had been seasoned 

 and cut up. It would seem that a good grade of dimension material 

 should bring a price by the thousand board feet at least equal to the 

 price which high-grade lumber would bring. As a matter of fact, 

 managers of many furniture factories prefer to buy the lumber and 

 cut their dimension sizes from it, for they have a large number of 

 different designs which change from year to year, and they might 

 suffer much waste in buying dimension sizes. Therefore, the lumber 



