4. BULLETIN 758, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
AVERAGE AND TOTAL COSTS OF WOOD. 
Comparative figures for 1909, 1916, and 1917 are given in Table 5 
on the number of establishments reporting, the quantity, average 
cost f. o. b. mill, and the total cost of the wood consumed, and the 
number of tons of wood pulp reported produced. The 1916 and 1917 
figures are closely aligned, since the basis of collection and compila- 
tion was the same for each year; the 1909 statistics are reproduced 
to permit of the changes for the nine-year period beg more readily 
noted. 
A noteworthy advance of $2.34—from $8.76 to $11.10, or 27 per 
cent—took place from 1916 to 1917 in the average cost per cord of 
wood f. o. b. mill. The average given is secured by a weighted or 
statistical computation and is based upon the average cost of approx- 
imately 90 per cent of all the wood reported consumed. No figures 
in this publication are likely to be more commented upon or ques- 
tioned as to their correctness when compared directly with actual 
cost data of a single operation or a group of mills. The fact is there- 
fore emphasized that the average cost figure was determined from 
pulp mill costs involving long and short hauls, rail or water hauls, or 
a combination of both, wood purchased in the open market, cut under 
old and new contracts, or taken from long held lands and for which 
but a nominal book charge was made. All species are represented 
and no distinction is made for the rough, peeled, and rossed wood. 
The per cent of increase in average value for the several States ranged 
from 13 per cent for the group of “all other States’’ to 56 per cent in 
North Carolina. The advance in Minnesota was 54 per cent, in New 
Hampshire 41 per cent, and in New York, Pennsylvania, West Vir- 
ginia, and Vermont between 30 and 40 per cent. (See Table 5, Ap- 
pendix.) 
RANGE OF PULPWOOD PRICES. 
Table 6 is presented to show more clearly the range of prices paid 
by the mills for wood according to its condition—rough, peeled, and 
rossed, and for slabs and other mill waste. Few mills out of the total 
number reporting costs got their supply of pulpwood for less than $6 
per cord; two mills paid between $25 and $26 per cord for their wood. 
The bulk of the mills paid somewhere between $10 and $20 per cord, 
and the average for the country as a whole was $11.10. (See Table 
6, Appendix.) 
QUANTITY AND COST OF WOOD BY CONDITION. 
Wood as delivered to the mill is referred to as rough, or with the 
bark intact, or as peeled and rossed, either of the two latter adding to 
the cost. In Table 7 are given, by States, the quantity, average cost, 
and total cost for the pulpwood according to the condition in which 
it was reported delivered to the mill. Of the wood consumed 46 per 
cent was in the rough, 41 per cent peeled, 9 per cent rossed, and 4 
