Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1910 — Artificial Lumber [ARTICLE]

Artificial Lumber

It will Soon Be a Necessity

By S. F. AARON

Although many who are interested ip the lumber business profess to believe that the long-prophesied timber famine is as far off as ever, information to the contrary is altogether conclusive. Wood, as a material for general construction, is soon to have its day. Those who know the facts have set down figures that are convincing enough in all conscience. The supply is known, the growth increase is known, the use and destruction estimated, though information upon cut ting is withheld or misstated, fires devastate and insects and fungus diseases destroy beyond our knowledge. Recently the writer made a timber survey for the owners of a little backwoods lot of forty thousand acres in the Shenandoah Mountains of Vir ginia, a virgin bit of forest never cut over. The conditions are much the same as in the entire*Appalachian region. Two chains of mountains traverse the tract lengthwise, and on these fertile slopes chestnut, chestnut oak. and white oak grow. In the deep valleys the larger timber is to be found—giant white pines,, hemlocks, tulip poplars, ash, oak, and chestnut. But within the last ten years the bark beetle has killed nearly all the white pine, rotting logs five ■feet in . diameter lie on the ground. From the highest mountain-top the great slopes of the widest valley on the tract could be seen, over forty square miles of tangled thickets, the haunt of bear and wildcat.

But what of the future supply of construction material? The metals can not be relied on in general, not even if aluminum should become as cheap as wood ever was. There is but one thing to look to, the making of a substance that will be strong, as light, as durable, and as cheap as wood. And if it is all these, it may also be a deal better than wood, for it need have no grain and will, therefore, be equally strong in all directions and comparatively free from considerable shrinking, swelling, and cracking. ” Manufacturing a Board The product must be water-proof and very desirably fire-proof. To be inexpensive and plentiful, a cheaply grown fiber must be the basic material, compacted in convenient sizes and made as free from grit as possible, so that it may be dimensioned and tooled into the thousands of shapes and sizes needed. The fibrous plants and grasses from which papers are made, as rice, esparto, wheat, southern wire-grass, etc., are worthy of consideration. There are the fibers that can be cheaply and roughly retted from the hemps, domestic and wild, and somewhat allied to these are the milk-weeds and the dogbane or Indian hemp.

It is pretty nearly obvious that some cementing material must be the means whereby the fibers are to be held together, but here is the real problem: It is little trouble to make an artificial board. , Layers of paper pasted together are strong and rigid, and far stronger when glue is used. It can be made reasonably waterproof when shellac is employed as the cement. But the expense—it would cost a hundred dollars to construct a fifty-cent chicken-coop with such material. The basic material in wood is cellulose, self-cementing under nature’s skilled workmanship. The nearest approach to its use is the proprietary celluloid; cellulose dissolved by a process that makes it highly inflammable and allied to guncotton or nitro-cellulose.

Then there are the rubbers, the latex in the sap of many trees, which are wonderfully adhesive, waterproof, and practically fire-proof, but they oxidize rapidly and hence disintegrate. And what a godsend such a thing as artificial lumber would be for the •preservation of the forests! The cutting necessary in scientific forestry would furnish all the veneers, panels, moldings, etc., needed for decorative purposes. Imagine, then, a piano case or other piece of excellent cabinet work having a core made -of compressed fiber instead of the usual soft wood, and with one or both sides veneered with mahogany, walnut, or rosewood, as desired. Imagine a house that is framed, roofed, floored, and even ceiled with wellfitting pieces that do not shrink, swell, nor split, and that are entirely fireproof, and within, the architraves, •bases, sash, balusters, staif-rail, and Steps of solid wood, while the doors, mantels, wainscots, stair-risers, and paneled ceilings are veneered. As certain as axes swing faster than trees can grow, artificial lumber will come, and we can not wait for it many years longer.—Collier's Weekly.