The Wood-Using Industries of Maryland. 



31 



manufacture I'ough lumber, shingles, cooperage materials; finished 

 lumber, sash, doors, blinds, and interior finish; and wooden packing 

 boxes. These, together with the additional operators producing ties, 

 poles, posts, and similar forest products, have 845 separate establish- 

 ments and plants, employ 9,838 men, and produce goods worth $14,- 

 874,837. Those allied concerns which carry further the manufacture 

 of these wood products include the paper and wood pulp trade, ship- 

 building, furniture and refrigerators, canes and umbrellas, musical 

 instruments, carriages, wagons and automobiles, cigar boxes, baskets, 

 rattan and willow ware, cooperage and miscellaneous manufactures. 

 They maintain 323 plants with 7,942 employees, and have an annual 

 product whose value was placed by the Thirteenth Census at $17,- 

 507,000. In explanation it may be said that while the last-named in- 

 dustries do not use wood exclusively in making up their output, they 

 supply products, nevertheless, in which wood constitutes a large share 

 of all the raw material converted. 



A thorough investigation begun in 1909 by the Maryland State 

 Board of Forestry and the United States Forest Service disclosed that 

 Maryland wood-using or manufacturing industries then in operation 

 were annually converting into finished products 284,346,895 feet of 

 raw material in the shape of rough lumber. Twenty per cent, ap- 

 proximately, was State-grown, and eighty per cent supplied from 

 States and countries outside. Its cost at the factory was $5,878,631, 

 averaging $20.67 per thousand feet. The average price for State- 

 grown woods was $14.44 per thousand ; for those from outside, $22.25. 

 This is explained by the higher freight rates obtaining on the latter, 

 and partly by the fact that woods not grown in Maryland, but sold 

 here, were generally of higher grade than those locally produced and 

 marketed. 



Woods used differed widely in amounts and kinds — from 130,699,- 

 500 board feet of loblolly pine, 27,889,000 feet of longleaf, and 22,030, 

 800 feet of white oak, to 25 feet of Turkish boxwood. Only 25 per 

 cent of this loblolly was Maryland-grown, none of the longleaf, and 

 but 15 per cent of the oak. Locust and dogwood were the only two in 

 a list of 54 species used commercially to have the distinction of being 

 produced altogether in Maryland. Pitch pine, red gum, and chestnut 

 were very nearly so, however. Regarding the disposition of those great 

 amounts of wood which are brought in to be manufactured here, it 

 may be said that makers of boxes, crates and packing eases absorb 

 a greater amount of wood than any other single industry, nearly 48 

 per cent of the total consumption being so used. Interior finish fol- 

 lows with 28 per cent ; furniture, with 6 per cent, is third. 



Maryland manufacturers of wood were at that time, in 1909, deriv- 



