10 BULLETIN 1436, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
make it probable that persimmon timber will last longer than 
dogwood. 
Of the 8,000 cords of persimmon consumed for dimension stock 
in 1923, 6,650 cords, or 83 per cent, was used in the manufacture 
of 2,600,000 shuttle blocks, and 17 per cent, or 1,350 cords, for golf 
club heads and shoe lasts. 
In addition to dimension stock, approximately 25,000 board feet of 
persimmon lumber is produced annually. A few lumber companies 
have scattered on their holdings good-sized individual persimmon 
trees which they can profitably cut into lumber to be used for frame- 
work of vehicles. The use of persimmon lumber is limited by the 
difficulty of cutting it and because the heartwood, being streaky, 
does not match well. Several manufacturers of hardwood lumber 
cut the occasional persimmon logs into shuttle blocks for export. 
A cut of persimmon lumber has been reported each year since 1907 
by the United States Departments of Agriculture and Commerce. 
Companies in Arkansas have reported a cut practically every year. 
Companies in Mississippi and South Carolina have reported for 
about half the years, and companies in Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, 
Missouri, Alabama, Florida, and Illinois for a number of years. The 
reports are misleading in that the cut of small-dimension material 
has always been consolidated with the cut of persimmon lumber. 
One reading the lumber-production figures is led to believe that 
fairly large quantities of persimmon lumber were cut each year from 
1907 to 1922 (the latest data available), when, as a matter of fact, the 
bulk of the cut reported went into squares or small-dimension 
stock for shuttles. 
CUTTING AND MARKETING DOGWOOD AND PERSIMMON 
A number of the farmers in the South who cut dogwood from 
their woodlands haul it to shuttle-block mills when the opportunity 
presents itself. Most of them, however, haul what they cut to a 
railroad siding, where one of the farmers, or more often a merchant, 
purchases it and lets it accumulate on the siding until a dogwood 
buyer comes and buys it. From the siding it is shipped to shuttle- 
block mills. (Fig. 6.) Very few shuttle-block manufacturers own 
their own dogwood timber. 
A stand of 1 or 2 cords of commercial dogwood to an acre is con- 
sidered extremely good. One cord on 1 to 10 acres is well worth 
cutting, and marketing, and even 1 cord to 15 acres in some localities. 
Less than a cord to 15 acres is hardly worth the handling under 
present economic conditions. The distance of the timber from the 
railroad and the difficulty of getting it cut and hauled determine, 
of course, the minimum quantity worth handling. 
Manufacturers in 1924 were paying from $12 to $25 a cord for 
dogwood bolts delivered at the mill. 
One owner of dogwood timber at Berea, Ky., refused in 1924 the 
following offer for material cut and stacked in the woods, claiming 
that it was too low : 
Bolts, 60 inches long, per cord $20 
Bolts, 54 inches long, per cord 18 
Bolts, 36 inches long, per cord 11 
Bolts, 21 inches long, per cord — __,._„ . — „ 6 
