COMMERCIAL WOODS The properties and uses of the principal kinds of timber that are manufactured into lumber in the United States, are briefly mentioned in chapter; also those of the more important imported woods. The various species are referred to by the names by which they are most widely known; and the order is alphabetic, without regard to the importance of any species in point of lumber production.
Table 107, on page 318, shows the present annual lumber production in the United States. A large percentage of the lumber output goes directly into general building and construction, and there, is no way in which the specific uses of such material can be ascertained. The figures given in this chapter upon the consumption of lumber represent chiefly the results of the state and government studies of the wood-using industries, during the course of which a great deal of valuable information has been accumulated upon the factory uses of wood. In order to avoid tiresome figures and to show the true proportions more readily, the tables made up from the statistical reports are in percentages; that is, the percentage of the total factory consumption of each species is shown for each industry in which the species is used, the total factory consumption in each case being 100 per cent.