REPORT ON FORESTS. 257 



Owing to the substitiition of bags for barrels and iron for wooden 

 hoops, there is practically at present no demand for hoop-poles. 

 At one time many people found employment in gathering the 

 leaves of the upland sumac* These were ground at the mills 

 and were used for tanning. 



The principal industries of the present are the cutting of 

 wood for fuel and the working of timber for constructive pur- 

 poses. Several minor products of more or less importance are 

 also collected. 



Wood for fuel may be divided into two classes-r-pole-wood 

 and cord-wood. When small-sized trees are cut in the pole 

 stage, such as oak coppice, they are merely stripped of their 

 branches, and are not divided into regular lengths, and are sold 

 as pole-wood, which is consumed locally and bought and sold 

 by the one-horse or two-horse wagon-load. This wood is abund- 

 ant and has little worth. If killed by fire, as is often the case, 

 it is not seriously injured for fuel, although slightly charred, 

 and often disagreeable to handle. Large quantities of this wood 

 may be had for the asking. The person who sells pole-wood 

 usually receives little more than his labor is worth in cutting 

 and delivering it to the purchaser. 



Cord-wood f is cut into sticks four feet long, and split once. 

 It is usually either pure pine or oak, sometimes mixed. If located 

 near a railroad or along a good wagon-road, there is a slight 

 margin of profit in this wood. In many parts of the Coastal 

 Plain of New Jersey it has no worth, because the cost of cutting 

 and transportation is equal to or even more than the market 

 price. Often, however, if the owner has teams of his own, he 

 cuts the wood when slack of other work and transports it in 

 order to furnish himself with labor. His wood-land really has 



* The chestnut oak ( Quercus prinus) furnishes the best tanning material of eastern trees. It is 

 hardly safe to recommend the planting of trees for tan-bark owing to the fact that other means of tanning 

 are in process of development, and new and perhaps better methods are liable to replace the old. There 

 are a few people, however, who believe that oak bark will be worth more a few years hence. The use of 

 quebracho, from South America, has had an important effect on this industry, but quebracho wood and 

 hemlock will not last forever. The chestnut-oak is common in South Jersey, and one should have no 

 hesitation in planting it. It grows fairly well in the shade of pine trees. In spite of the use of many other 

 tanning materials, the choicest leather is " oak-tanned." 



A cord, in Jersey, is four feet wide, four feet high and eight feet long. It contains eight cord feet 

 ■or one hundred and twenty-eight cubic feet, or 3.62 cubic meters. 



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