148 FOREST PRODUCTS 



imports American tight cooperage stock. Most of the exported material 

 is used for the wine trade. 



About 87 per cent of the staves manufactured in 19 11 were sawed. 

 About 94 per cent of the heading was sawed. Others were bucked 

 and split or hewed. There are about 500 active estabhshments pro- 

 ducing tight cooperage staves and heading in this country. 



VALUE OF PRODUCTS 



In 1909 the value of tight staves produced was estimated to be 

 $9,201,964; or an average of $24.26 per thousand for the 379,000,000 

 staves produced in that year. In the same year there were 20,691,000 

 sets of heading produced having a total value of $3,716,000. In addi- 

 tion to this there were 16,547,000 beer and ale staves produced for which 

 no available j&gures are obtainable regarding value. More recent data 

 relating to total production and values are not available, but market 

 quotations show a tremendous increase in prices. For instance, early 

 in 1915 Bourbon staves were selling in the Ozark region for $52 per 

 thousand f.o.b. car, while, in December, 1916, this grade brought $77. 

 In 1916 the number of finished barrels produced for malt liquors amounted 

 to 58,634,000. Their output has not varied greatly during the past ten 

 years. Since the average price of a barrel was about $2 f.o.b. central 

 markets, in 191 7, the total value of finished high-grade stock produced 

 annually amounts to over $1 77,000,000. ^ 



WOODS OPERATIONS 



In contrast with the general policy followed in the slack cooperage 

 industry where the logs and bolts or other raw material are brought to 

 the mill, in the tight cooperage industry it is the general custom to use 

 small portable mills, which are set up in the woods near the source of the 

 raw material and are frequently moved about from place to place. This 

 means a much shorter haul of the bolts, which are the form of the raw 

 material used customarily in the manufacture of tight cooperage stock. 



Formerly a good share of the tight staves were rived, but this method 

 was so very wasteful and the supply of raw material became relatively 

 so limited that most of the tight cooperage staves are now split into bolts 

 and then sawed into staves at small portable mills located at convenient 

 accessible points throughout the forest. Beer staves and a very few 

 whisky and wine staves are still split out. It is also the custom to rive 

 isolated timber more commonly than accessible timber because there is 

 ^ From data supplied by the U. S. Forest Service. 



