UTILIZATION OF BLACK WALNUT. 43 
disfavor for this use, probably because of the mistaken idea that the 
dark sawdust is not clean. Slabs and edgings are useful only for 
fuel and are generally burned in the steam boilers. At some mills 
located near large cities a good trade has been started up in walnut 
cordwood. This waste, together with pieces too low in grade or 
too small in size to be merchantable, is usually sold by the wagonload 
for about $1.25 or $1.50 a load, which is equivalent to about $3.50 a 
cord. Much very low-grade and defective lumber that is marketable 
in normal times has not been salable because of the large ac- 
cumulations made during the war. This class of material may be 
in demand for cheap and low-grade lumber when such stocks become 
less plentiful. A vast quantity of small sound portions of walnut 
accumulated in the process of manufacturing gunstock blanks from 
the flitch, and from these portions many clear pieces may be cut. 
Some of this stock has been disposed of to manufacturers of such 
small novelties as air rifles, but the market is limited, and immense 
piles of this material must be used for fuel. (PI. IV, fig. 2.) 
Some mills convert their low-grade and small- dimension material 
into dimension stock. This, however, does not seem to be generally 
successful with walnut, on account of the large number of sizes de- 
manded, and these can not be produced without considerable waste. 
Manufacturers complain that for carefully manufactured clear stock 
they receive much less than for No. 1 common lumber ; whereas they 
should receive a price equal to that of the firsts and seconds grade. 
Factory managers claim, on the other hand, that much waste in the 
use of dimension stock is caused by too close cutting to the finished 
size, by warping and checking, and by the presence of serious defects 
which can not be cut out. Theoretically, the manufacture of low- 
grade material into dimension sizes should be a success economically, 
provided the sizes are made to meet factory requirements. Thus, be- 
fore the war, a chair factory would purchase No. 1 common black- 
walnut lumber for, say, $65 a thousand, kiln-dry it for approximately 
$6, and cut it up at a cost of $10 to $15 a thousand, making a total 
cost of about $83. Since the average waste in manufacture amounts 
to about 25 per cent, the original thousand board feet would be re- 
duced to about 750 board feet. This would make the material cost 
11 cents a board foot, or $110 a thousand, after it had been seasoned 
and cut up. It would seem that a good grade of dimension material 
should bring a price by the thousand board feet at least equal to the 
price which high-grade lumber would bring. As a matter of fact, 
managers of many furniture factories prefer to buy the lumber and 
cut their dimension sizes from it, for they have a large number of 
different designs which change from year to year, and they might 
suffer much waste in buying dimension sizes. Therefore, the lumber 
