FOREST SERVICE. 283 



Statistics of jianufacture.— Heretofore a decennial census of the 

 lumber industry has been taken by the Bureau of the Census. Con- 

 gress has provided for a quinquennial census, beginning with the year 

 1905. There is great need for a yearly statement of the apiount of 

 lumber cut and marketed, and the Forest Service will attempt to 

 make such a statement, beginning with the cut of the year 1905. The 

 work will be conducted principally by correspondence, after the 

 methods followed by the Geological Survey in obtaining j^eaiiv sta- 

 tistics^ of the niineral products. The National Lumber Manufac- 

 turers' Association and other associations will cooperate with the 

 Service in getting and publishing the figures. 



Studies of woods for special uses.— Plans are ready for the study 

 during the present year of cooperage and box woods, vehicle and 

 implement woods, and wooden paving blocks. Similar studies are 

 planned upon furniture and cabinet woods, railroad ties, fence posts, 

 and piles and poles. 



Timber Tests. 



The testing of timbers of commercial use will be carried on by 

 a system of laboratories, with a central laboratory and office at 

 Lafayette, Ind., as at present, or at Washington, D. C. The proposed 

 system embraces six laboratories, whose location and work are as 

 follows : 



Purdue laboratory, Lafayette, Ind. — Tests of the effects of pre- 

 servatives and preservative processes on the strength of loblolly pine, 

 tests of box lumber, tests of red gum which has been air seasoning for 

 nearly two years, the study of the methods of testing wood for their 

 properties of resisting abrasion, the determination of the ability of 

 various woods to resist the action of a blow, showing different classes 

 of defects, and determination of the 'mechanical properties of the pos- 

 sible substitutes for the hard woods now used in the vehicle industry. 



A study will be made of the proper design for two new testing 

 machines, the first to be a large machine of great capacity for test- 

 ing the strength of posts or columns, for which now no machine 

 exists, and the second to test the life of wood under such vibrations 

 and repetitive stresses as come on stringers and other structural 

 forms under the passage of a rolling or live load. 



Washington laboratory, Washington, D. C. — Tests of loblolly 

 pine for structural purposes, including the effect on strength of 

 knots, air seasoning, kiln drying, rate of growth, sapwood, and age, 

 aad tests of the structural value of various hard woods of the south- 

 ern Appalachians, and of the value of loblolly and shortleaf pine for 

 cross arms. 



Yale laboratory, New Haven, Conn. — Tests of the effect of the 

 rate of application of a load on the strength of wood, and a study of 

 the effect of different methods of drying on the strength of wood. 



Berkeley laboratory, Berkeley, Cal. — Tests of western yellow 

 pine as a structural timber and for telephone and telegraph poles 

 and railroad ties, and of eucalypts, especially blue gum and red gum. 



Eugene laboratory, Eugene, Oreg. — Tests of various grades of 

 red fir for structural purposes, and of cedar for telephone poles. 



