22 
BULLETIN 1437, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
alder except the bow backs, bent-top slats, and runners. The bow 
backs, pillars, and bent-top slats are made of either red (eastern) 
oak (Quercus torealis mawi?na) or Oregon white oak, the runners 
usually of big-leaf (western) maple. Figures 6 and 7 show various 
designs of cheap chairs and stools made largely of alder. 
The industry also uses alder in the manufacture of medium-grade 
chairs, mostly of the slip-seat diner variety. The legs, stretchers, 
and side and front rails of these chairs, which are made in various 
period styles and finished to imitate black walnut, are made solely 
of alder. In medium-grade rocking-chairs and ordinary diners the 
extent to which alder is used depends on the finish. If the chairs are 
finished in walnut or mahogany, the rails, stretchers, and posts are 
often of alder; otherwise alder is used only as a core stock in the 
seats, side rails, and top slats. 
Fig. 7.— ALDER STOOLS AND ROCKING-CHAIR 
The rockers are made of maple 
The chair manufacturers purchase 95 per cent of their alder sup- 
ply in the form of logs, which by means of simple equipment, con- 
sisting for the most part of a circular saw, carriage, and sawdust 
conveyor, are converted into 1 to 3-inch lumber. The thick stock is 
used in chair bottoms. 
WOODENWAKE AND NOVELTIES 
A number of separate and distinct uses for alder are included under 
"Woodenware and novelties." The ordinary household articles 
known as woodenware and the more ornamental article known as a 
novelty are not always easy to classify. Then, too, establishments 
that make woodenware are frequently manufacturers of novelties as 
well as other classes of articles, consuming similar stock and report- 
ing their raw material together. 
In 1923 about 550,000 feet of alder was consumed in the production 
of floor lamps, candle sticks, smoke stands, table lamps, pedestals, 
