WOOD-USING INDUSTRIES OF PENNSYLVANIA 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the work of practical forestry, Pennsylvania is a leading State and 

 bears this distinction as a result of the development and operation of an 

 effective State-wide policy. To this Commonwealth also properly belongs the 

 credit of being the cradle of American forestry. When William Penn made 

 the well known provision in the Charter of Rights, that for every five acres 

 cleared one should be left in woods, the seed of forestry was first sown. Fol- 

 lowing this, as early ag 1700, the proprietary Government enacted forest 

 fire laws, and from that time to the present, State Legislatures have de- 

 bated upon and passed similar enactments. Popular sentiment favoring the 

 practice of forestry by the State, grew steadily from the beginning, but in 

 the past 20 years it has developed with remarkable rapidity. Directing this 

 educational propaganda were men who have since gained prominence and 

 who stand high among those recognized as authorities pertaining to forestry 

 subjects. 



Naturally, much has been Vv^'itten and said on all phases of forest con- 

 servation and improvement in Pennsylvania. In the discussions, the economic 

 importance of forests, aside from the collateral values they are regarded as 

 possessing, has been reckoned usually in terms of production of the rougher 

 forest products, such as lumber, lath, shingles, crossties, cooperage stock, 

 telegraph poles, fence posts, mine timbers, cordwood for fuel and distillation 

 purposes. The commercial gain that comes to the State through the millions 

 of feet of lumber that the forests supply through their conversion into such 

 finished commodities as vehicles, boxes, handles, novelties, has always been 

 recognized; but reference thereto has been made only in a casual manner 

 as the detailed data have not heretofore been available. It is a well es- 

 tablished fact that the cutting and shipping away of lumber and other 

 forest materials like pulp wood, cooperage stock, chemical wood, etc., is not 

 as permanent a commercial and industrial gain as when those materials find 

 a home market and are held for the manufacture of finished articles within 

 the State, but to what extent this development has taken place in Pennsyl- 

 vania, no previous investigation has ever attempted to ascertain. This study 

 has been projected, therefore, with this special view, and of outlining the 

 relations of the wood-consuming industries to the growing forests, as well as 

 of collecting information respecting wood uses and factory waste. 



The information presented in this report covers the period of twelve 

 months, prior to July, 1912. It was gathered in the late summer and fall of 

 that year by the Department of Forestry of Pennsylvania, and by the Forest 

 Service, United States Department of Agriculture, working under a co- 

 operative agreement. The information was solicited from the manufacturers, 

 not only from those producing complete wooden commodities, but from those 

 making wooden parts of products, axe handles, brush blocks, and piano 

 cases, for example; those factories that use lumber as a means of manufac- 

 turing other commodities, like patterns and flasks in foundry work, and fac- 

 tories of all kinds that require lumber in the marketing of their wares by 

 manufacturing their own boxes and crates. The names and locations of all 

 manufacturers were obtained through the assistance of the postmasters in the 



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