58 BULLETIN 983, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Practically all the commercially available coniferous woods of this 
country are of equal value for alcohol production, and, as the waste 
from them constitutes the greater portion of the mill waste of the 
country, the results obtained from the experiments with them are 
naturally the most interesting. Cypress and the cedars were not 
tried; and the writer has no data to present regarding them except 
commercial results obtained from cypress in mixture with longleaf 
pine. As the exact composition of the mixture is not known, no 
positive data can be offered; it may, however, be said that cypress 
seems to give yields only from 60 to 75 per cent as good as pine. 
The different results obtained in cooks Nos. 50, 83, and 72 on 
western larch are due to differences in material as well as in treatment. 
The differences will be considered in greater detail later. Cook No. 
50 was made on material from the butt log, which is usually left in the 
woods, and with 1.8 per cent acid at 7.5 atmospheres for 10 minutes. 
Cooks Nos. 72 and 83 were made with 2.5 per cent of acid, the first for 
20 minutes and the second for 40 minutes. Unfortunately, all three 
cooks were not made on material from the same sample, although 
cooks Nos. 72 and 83 were on the same sample and indicate a tendency 
toward an increase of fermentable sugars with an increase in the 
time of cooking. This tendency is probably due to pentose decompo- 
sition, as it was with spruce. The high figure for total sugars is due 
to the production of galactose, which is not fermentable under ordi- 
nary conditions, and the figures for fermentable sugars are therefore 
correspondingly lower than they are in the other coniferous woods. 
BROAD-LEAVED WOODS. 
The broad-leaved woods neither give the yields obtained from the 
coniferous woods, nor do they exhibit the uniformity of yield shown 
by the coniferous species. The yields of total sugars are sometimes 
nearly as great as those obtained from the coniferous species; but, 
as the following table shows, the portion of the total sugars ferment-" 
able is very much less than that from the coniferous species: 
Cook 
No. 
Species of wood. 
'62 Birch. 
73 Hard maple. 
Silver maple . 
White oak. . . 
Red oak 
Sycamore 
Slippery elm . 
Red gum 
Cottonwood . 
Totalre- 
dueing 
sugars, 
per cent 
of origi- 
nal dry 
wood. 
20.53 
18.93 
20.74 
21.24 
17.30 
18.38 
18.30 
16.60 
20.12 
18.19 
Per cent of total 
reducing sugars. 
Fermen- 
table. 
16.29 
34.04 
47.22 
22.22 
50.48 
30.40 
38.86 
26.79 
38.81 
32.86 
Alcohol vields. 
Per cent 
Infer- j of origi- 
mentable. naldry 
wood. 
53.71 
65.96 
52.78 
77.78 
49.52 
69.59 
61.14 
73.21 
61.19 
67.14 
4.2SS 
3.029 
4.661 
1.995 
4.102 
2.675 
3.205 
1.382 
3.658 
2.392 
Gallons 
of abso- 
lute per 
Gallons 
of 190- 
proof per 
dry ton 
allowing 
dry tons. 5 percent 
distilla- 
tion loss. 
12.97 
9.16 
14.10 
6.03 
12.40 
8.09 
9.69 
5.99 
11.06 
7.23 
12.95 
9.14 
14.07 
6.02 
12. 38 
8.07 
9.67 
5.98 
11.03 
7.21 
