14 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 1641 
Telephone and telegraph poles command the highest prices paid 
for chestnut. However, some purchasers demand that the poles be 
cut green and that they be not seriously damaged by blight, while 
others only specify that the sapwood be sound on the butt. For these 
reasons it is advisable for owners to market their poles as soon as 
practicable. ; 
The manufacture of chestnut extract affords the most feasible out- 
let for much of the stand. Extract plants are already established 
strategically over the southern Appalachian district. (Fig. 12.) 
This industry, by far the largest consumer of chestnut, uses enormous 
quantities of the wood. It disposes of trees and parts of trees that 
are worthless except as acid wood. The limbs as well as trunks are 
Ficors 12.—A chestnut-extract plant. There are 21 chestnut-extract plants in the 
blot Appalachians, producing over one-half of the dumestic supply of vegetabie 
aliins 
used, so that little waste remains in the woods to increase the fire 
hazard. Best of all, from the standpoint of the present situation, 
even the prolonged standing of dead timber does not exclude its use 
for this purpose. 
Studies* have recently been carried out, in cooperation with the 
Bureau of Chemistry and Soils and with chemists of the chestnut- 
extract plants, on the tannin content of trees that had been killed by 
belting or by forest fires in a number of localities in the southern 
Appalachians. These trees are considered fairly comparable to 
bhight-killed chestnuts. The studies indicate that the percentage of 
tannin in trees dead as long as 25 to 30 years is not materially less 
than that in living trees. Blight-killed trees lose their sapwood and 
bark within a few years after their death. However, the loss of the 
sapwood, which is thin and has a low tannin content (2 to 4 per cent), 
is of little importance. Even the loss of the bark, which has approxi- 
"NELSON, R. M., and Gravarr, G. F i 
yoke Me,. 2 MAVATT, G.I. THE TANNIN CONTENT OF DE CHESTN E 
Jour, Amer, Leather Chem. Assoc, 24: 479-499, 1929, 7 Per yeas eee te aera 
