12 BULLETIN 152, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Pulp mills may pay as high as $12 per thousand board feet, in the 
log, and accept crooked logs. This fact is important in view of the 
low "mill run" value of hemlock lumber, which is rarely much over 
$15 per thousand board feet at the mill, and for which crookedness 
is a more or less serious defect. The pulp mills also prefer to receive 
their wood peeled, and will often pay $1 more per thousand board 
feet for peeled than for unpeeled logs. Peeled logs are cheaper to 
transport and more durable than unpeeled ones, and there is no ex- 
pense for rossing. On the other hand, stripping tanbark from saw 
logs often greatly reduces their value, due to the serious checking 
which results. Bark peeling can be done more profitably when logs 
are cut for pulp than for lumber. 
The value of hemlock cordwood in Wisconsin is about $3.50 per 
cord when logs are selling at $8.50 per thousand board feet, and about 
$4 per cord when logs sell at from $9 to $12 per thousand. The cost 
of getting out cordwood is about $2.50 or $3 a cord. Until quite 
recently hemlock pulpwood stumpage at many places in Wisconsin 
has been valued at 50 cents a cord. 
TANNING. 
Hemlock bark has been used in tanning practically ever since the 
beginning of the industry in America. Oak bark is preferred, since 
it makes the leather softer, more pliable, and less permeable to water 
than does hemlock; but there is not as much of it, and for many 
years its annual consumption in tanning has been less than half that 
of hemlock. With the introduction of tanning extracts, hemlock 
and oak were the first native species to be used, but after the process 
by which extract could be made from chestnut wood was perfected, 
about 1900, the latter species became the leading source of supply. 
In 1909 it supplied practically half the extract used, while the amount 
supplied by hemlock had fallen to about 3 per cent of the total quan- 
tity. The amount of hemlock bark made into extract was never a 
large part of the total hemlock bark consumed in tanning; in 1900 it 
formed about 1 per cent, in 1907 and 1908 slightly exceeded 8 per 
cent, and in 1909 had fallen to less than 3 per cent. 
Table 5 gives the total annual consumption of tan bark and extract 
in the United States, with the proportion supplied by each of the 
leading native species, and the value per cord of hemlock and oak 
bark. The figures are from census reports for different years. For 
convenience, the percentage figures, when they include decimals, are 
expressed as the nearest whole number. 
