|
Almost since the
beginning of timber and lumber exportations from Canada the
manufacture of cooperage stock or material therefor has been one of
the leading of the minor forest industries. Easily accessible to
waterways, all the way from Quebec to Lake Huron were originally
immense quantities of # timber suitable for this purpose. The oaks,
and other woods used in the manufacture of cooperage stock, which
grew in Canada compared very favorably with those of the United
States, and, as intimated above, they were for the most part more
accessible, though for scores of years the industry in the United
States has been growing to magnificent proportions, feeding upon the
resources reached not only by river, but by railroads. The Canadian
cooperage stock industry, however, antedated that of the United
States and was maintained in large proportions until the cutting
away of timber compelled a reduction in its magnitude.
The more recent
history of the Canadian industry is indicated to some extent in the
figures of production contained in the preceding chapter, but a more
reliable measure of its importance and fluctuations is found in the
export statistics, out of which the following brief table has been
compiled. The maximum of exportations, and presumably of manufacture
likewise, was reached about the middle of the last decade, since
when there has been an almost uniform decline, until, in 1904, the
total exports of staves, heading and stave bolts were valued at only
$211,485.
The cooperage stock
industry of Canada is not of sufficient importance to demand much
space in this work, but a few pages may well be devoted to a review
of the industry from historical and technical standpoints, prepared
by a man who is one of the leading exporters of this class of
material either in Canada or in the United States. His review of
this subject1 occupies the remainder of
this chapter:
A great many years
ago, when the principal exports from Canada to the old country
consisted of furs and timber, some enterprising Frenchman (or
possibly Scotchman), who had come from the motherland, being
employed in the manufacture of barrels and casks, conceived the idea
of getting out staves and heading in Canada for export to Great
Britain. In those days the forests contained a great deal of fine
white oak all the way from Quebec to Windsor, but more especially in
the western peninsula, and those trees were cut down, squared up
with a broad-ax and shipped to England, the consequence being that
only the finest trees were used and only part of them, namely, the
part that could be put into square timber.
This square timber
was floated down to Montreal, loaded on vessels there for the old
country, where it was used for the manufacture of lumber, and, I
presume, staves also. This enterprising Frenchman or Scotchman no
doubt saw the terrible waste which occurred by only using certain
parts of the trees, and also saw the trees which were passed as not
fit for square timber, but which would make excellent staves and
undoubtedly this was the commencement of the cooperage industry in
Canada.
Staves were taken
out for the wine casks of France and Spain, and the whisky casks of
Great Britain and Ireland, and before long “ Canada butts ” and “
Quebec pipe staves ” became standard grades in Great Britain and on
the Continent.
At that time all of
the sugar used in England came from the West Indies and was shipped
in hogsheads, and the West Indies hogshead staves were also
manufactured in Canada, shipped to England, where they were made
into shooks and sent over to the West Indies to be filled with
sugar, molasses and rum.
As the oak got
scarcer in the east, the hewers and stave makers drifted west, until
Chatham, Ontario, became one of the great centers of the stave
industry.
The old residents
here have told the writer that years ago McGregor Creek and Thames
River, which converge at Chatham, would have its waters covered for
miles every spring with square oak, walnut timber, Canada butts,
Quebec pipe staves and West India hogshead staves, and the smaller
and shorter pieces of oak, utilized for barrel keg staves and
heading. These were loaded on vessels in the Thames River, sent down
to Montreal, and in some cases sent direct to England from Chatham.
This, of course, was entirely tight barrel stock, as in those days
no slack barrel stock was exported from Canada, as being all made by
hand it was too expensive to send over to the old country, which at
that time was almost entirely supplied with norway fir staves and
beech staves made from the timber growing in England, Ireland and
Scotland.
Mr. Neil Watson, of
Mull, Ontario, now a manufacturer of slack barrel stock, hauled
staves from Harwick township to Buckhom Beach for years and sold his
pipe staves, 60x5x2, at $25 per thousand, and West India staves,
44x4^xl, at $5 to $8 per 1,200 for shipment to England.
Tight barrel stock
in Canada is now almost a thing of the past, the oak having been
almost exhausted, and what staves are made here now are used
entirely for local consumption, either being made in the old way,
which I will describe, or being sawed on a drum saw.
The method of
manufacture in the early days, in fact it is still in use, was to
cut the trees up into bolt lengths, according to the quality of the
tree, whether suitable for long or short staves or heading, then to
split these bolts with afrowknife, and in some cases, such as “
Canada butts,” dress them with a draw knife and ship them in the
rough, sometimes taking the sap off, but other times shipping them
with the sap on. Now most of the oak staves are sawn on a drum saw,
which does away with a great deal of waste, on account of the slips
on the part of the workman with the frow, and also enables the
manufacturers to use tougher oak and timber which would not split
freely with a frow, in fact, work up everything very close. The
bucker, for bucking staves, never got much of a foothold in Canada,
as the timber was practically exhausted here before buck staves were
salable on foreign markets.
Oak heading,
instead of being split now, is sawed, and while in the old days the
head used to be split, finished off with a draw knife, marked off
with a compass and sawed out by hand, the bevel also being put on
with a draw knife, the heading is now sawed on a swing saw, piled in
the yard to dry, put through a kiln when partially seasoned, run
through a planer and turned up with a rounding machine, which puts
on the bevel and turns the head at the same time. As already stated,
the manufacture of tight barrel stock in Canada from oak is now
almost a thing of the past, and does not figure very much in the
export trade of Canada.
We will now turn to
the manufacture of slack barrel stock. Years ago when the
manufacturing industries in Canada were in their infancy and the
consumption of barrels was a very minor matter, coopers made their
staves and heading for flour and other slack barrels in the same
manner as they used to make their tight barrel stock, in fact the
same as a great many tight barrel staves and heading are still made
in the United States.
The cooper would
get his bolts in the winter, haul them to his cooper shop, split out
his staves with his frow, and in the winter make the staves with a
draw knife, jointing them on a planer jointer, in some cases even
putting on the joint with his draw knife. At that time slack barrel
staves were made almost entirely from red oak and basswood, the
cooper making his staves during the winter months in his shop,
seasoning them inside his barn or cooper shop, and making up his
barrels as required, and after the staves were seasoned selling them
from seventy-five cents to $1 each. Coopering at that time was
simply a side issue, the cooper being also a farmer, carpenter, or
some other tradesman, and making all kinds of barrels and casks from
a flour barrel to a water tank.
Years rolled on,
the red oak forests of Canada became a thing of the past—what oak
was left would bring very much higher prices for lumber or bending
purposes, sawn timbers, etc., than it would bring for staves, and
the same applied to the States of New York, Ohio and Indiana, which
at that time were large stave producers. Some Yankee genius (sad to
say, unknown), possibly a man who thought there was a great waste of
energy in making staves by hand, got his brains to work and invented
the modern stave knife for cutting slack barrel staves from steamed
bolts. The machine as at first invented is practically the same as
is in use at the present time, the only improvements that have been
made being that the machine is made twice as heavy as formerly, so
as to be rigid and do away with the cutting of thin staves, and a
balance wheel was put on so as to make the strokes more regular, and
the speed increased from fifty revolutions per minute, which was the
original cut of the machine, to 150 or 160 revolutions per minute,
which is the speed at which the modern stave knives are run.
When this machine
was first in use the staves were made entirely from red oak and
basswood, the bolts being split out with a frow or ax, brought to
the mill in this way and cut into staves. Immense elm forests then
attracted the attention of some of the stave manufacturers and they
experimented with making elm staves. It is not a great many years
ago, only since I came to this country, that red oak staves were the
principal kind used on the Minneapolis market, now elm is almost
entirely used, in fact red oak staves are not liked on account of
being so hard to work.
For a great many
years nothing but split bolts were used, until some manufacturer,
with a sawmill attached, conceived the idea of sawing his bolts, but
until fifteen years ago staves made from sawn bolts commanded a
lower price than staves from split bolts, as the coopers were of the
opinion that staves could not be made straight grained unless the
bolts were split, and it took a great many years to remove this
erroneous idea. Now there is hardly a mill in the country making
staves from anything but sawed bolts, and elm is the principal
timber used, in fact is considered always desirable to any timber at
the present time, although birch, beech, maple and southern woods
are now crowding elm by degrees off the market, on account of the
high price of elm stumpage.
We will now turn to
the hoop industry. Until about twenty years ago all of the barrels
were hooped with what is known as half-round hoops. The cooper cut
these hoops in the winter, hauled them to his cooper shop, and spent
the long winter months when not making staves in making hoops for
his summer trade. Then the racked hoop made from black ash came into
vogue, this being the precursor of the modem patent cut elm hoop.
For a great many years the hoops were made either racked or split
from elm, and finished with a draw knife, until the idea was
conceived of cutting the hoops the same as staves from elm plank,
and this hoop was found, when it was perfected, to be superior in
every way to the racked or bark hoop. It is still the principal hoop
on the market, although on account of the scarcity of elm a great
many wire hoops are being used to supplement the elm hoops on the
barrels. The iron hoop alone does not give sufficient rigidity to a
barrel, and if not supplemented with the patent hoop, the barrels
when stored on the bulges would collapse without the assistance of
the elm hoop.
Heading, which
formerly used to be made in the same way as staves, split from
bolts, dressed off with a draw knife, in fact the same as tight
barrel heading, are now sawed on a swing saw, kiln dried and turned
on a turning machine, at the rate of 3,000 sets per day to one
machine, whereas formerly it was a very good cooper who would turn
out twenty-five heads in a day.
While the tight
barrel cooperage industry of Canada has declined, the slack barrel
industry has leaped up until it is one of the most important
industries in Canada, millions of dollars being invested in stave,
hoop and heading mills all over the country from Nova Scotia to
Ontario, and barrels being used for almost every conceivable
purpose, as they are the handiest, strongest and best package that
has yet been invented by man.
There is no doubt
but there is timber in parts of Canada which are yet undeveloped to
continue this industry for a number of years, and no doubt before
the supply is exhausted methods of reforestry will be inaugurated by
the Canadian government the same as are in vogue in Norway and
Sweden. It is one of the greatest industries we have in Canada and
should be fostered so as to continue in perpetuity. |
