While some architects and builders are now including built-in kitchen cabinets in their plans for new dwellings, they are not sufficient to affect the demand for the manufactured article. Only since the war has the American style of fitted kitchen cabinet been known, but since that time it has rapidly come to the forefront as a labor saver. These cabinets are obtainable in light or dark finishes or white enameled with rustless hinges and door fastenings to meet the variable temperatures of the kitchen. While some of these cabinets are imported, most of them are now manufactured in Great Britain and are sold by both furniture and hardware dealers.

OFFICE FURNITURE

There are many substantial firms in Great Britain which specialize in the manufacture of office furniture, such as chairs, desks, and filing cabinets, most of it being modeled on American lines. American white oak is chiefly used while the more expensive kind, such as is used in banks, is of mahogany or walnut. The average British firm, however, does not pay as much attention to the furnishing .of its office as is done in the United States, many not having been refurnished since the busi

FIG. 29.-Dual desk with lift top and tilting seat

ness was started, which may be from 50 to 100 years. As a result, there is a tremendous amount of antiquated office furniture in use which is replaced only when the firm moves into new quarters. There is, however, a great activity in the erection of new office buildings in London and also in the provincial cities so that the outlook for increasing sales of furniture is bright. But it is doubtful if there is much opportunity for American manufactured goods, exports of which to the United Kingdom, according to official statistics, were valued at only $33,399 (consisting of about one-third chairs and two-thirds furniture) during 1926, indicating that it can not compete in price with the domestic-made product.

SCHOOL FURNITURE

The manufacture of school furniture in Great Britain is a specialized branch of the industry and there are not more than a dozen firms of note in the entire country that make it.

Most desks are made according to designs patented by the manufacturers, the patented idea, however, applying more to the design

of the metal and the method by which the woodwork is fitted to the metal supporting standards than to the design of the desk itself. The sizes of school desks are standardized with the heights carefully graded, the comparative height of desk and seat being proportionate to meet the different standards, the distance from floor to seat being about 62 per cent of the total

is divided into two compartments each with separate lids. Both these types of desks are made either well rail and fitted with both steel and

In addition to desks, manufacturers of school furniture also make cupboards, teachers' desks, blackboards, easels, model stands, and writing slopes. Oak and southern pine are used for the better type

of these to conform with the desks and north European pine, stained and varnished, for the less expensive, the cupboards being frequently backed with three-ply or five-ply alder. As it is important that the chalk be easily removed from a blackboard an absolutely smooth surface is essential. Formerly Canadian white pine was largely used for this purpose but it has now been replaced by plywood.

For laboratory work tables with teak tops and an underframing of southern pine are generally employed. Some school-furniture manufacturers also make screens and partitions used to divide classrooms into smaller units, Douglas fir being preferred for this purpose.

Woods used. About 60 per cent of the school desks now made in Great Britain are of American oak and the remainder of southern pine. In pre-war days the latter wood predominated but its appreciation in value since that time has caused the demand to turn toward oak. The stock generally used is 1 and 14 inches by 8 inches and wider, extra prime. Both red and white No. 1 common and select plain oak are used, the red being preferred where the furniture is to be given a brown finish, while the white is used for the lighter finish. During the war, when these two woods were difficult to obtain, experiments were made with various native species, but without success, and to-day oak and southern pine, both from the United States, have a virtual monopoly of the school-desk trade.

MOISTURE CONTENT OF LUMBER

In Great Britain, where for long periods the air is saturated with moisture and where a number of rooms in most British houses are damp for long periods of the year, because of the absence of central heating, swelling has to be guarded against as much if not more than shrinking. As a result of these conditions the question of drying lumber down to a low moisture content is not so imperative as under American conditions.

The question of determining the best moisture content of furniture lumber has been under consideration by the British furniture industry for some time past and has not yet been definitely settled, but experiments made so far point to the correct percentage of moisture being somewhere between 10 and 14 per cent, probably about the middle point.

DIMENSION STOCK

The furniture industry is the largest consumer of dimension stock in Great Britain. It is imported in the form of squares, principally oak from the United States (red and white, quartered and plain sawn) and central Europe, beech from Czechoslovakia, a little black walnut from the United States, and birch from Finland. These are used for the legs of tables and dressing tables, also bedposts.

The sizes most in demand are as follows: 4 by 4 by 28 and 30 inches; 321⁄2 by 31⁄2 by 28 and 30 inches; 3 by 3 by 28 and 30 inches; 21⁄2 by 212 by 28 and 30 inches; 2 by 2 by 28, 30, 36, 42, 48, and 54 inches; 134 by 134 by 30 and 33 inches; and 111⁄2 by 112 by 28, 30, 38, 42, 48, and 54 inches.

Grade. The following is a grade frequently called for by British importers catering to this trade: "To be all heart, free of all defects,

Th

i. e., knots, shakes, and wormholes; to be cut full so as to finish to the exact sizes given when dry."

Claims are frequent on squares on contracts calling for "dry" stock. It is never advisable to use the term "dry," which is subject to many interpretations, and it is suggested that one of the following be used instead, thereby avoiding much trouble: "Shipping dry,' "skin dry," months on sticks."

99 66

USE OF PLYWOOD

Plywood is being used to an increasing extent in the manufacture of furniture. For table tops, bedstead head and foot ends, wardrobe sides and doors, okoumé (gabon) and north European birch and alder are mostly employed as a core for veneer of mahogany, walnut, or fancy woods. It is for the heavier work that the laminated okoumé board is mostly in demand. For backs of wardrobes, cabinets, partitions, panels, and drawer bottoms the lower qualities of European birch and alder, and Japanese and Siberian ash, are used, depending largely upon the class of furniture being made."

EXHIBITIONS

The British furniture industry holds annual exhibitions in London, Manchester, and Scotland, at which advance styles for the coming season are shown. By far the most important of these is that held in London during the first week of February each year. These exhibitions are restricted to the trade only and the one held in London in 1927 was visited by over 40,000 buyers and furniture valued at over £250,000, specially constructed for the occasion was exhibited.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

Since the war there have been approximately 1,000,000 houses built in Great Britain but, owing to the industrial depression that has existed since the postwar boom of 1920, very little has been done in the way of refurnishing them. Untold numbers of houses in the great industrial and mining centers are furnished with the barest necessities, their occupants in many cases living entirely on Government or municipal relief. Although there were at the end of 1927 still over 1,000,000 unemployed in the country, there are signs that industry is surely, if slowly, reviving and as the wage-earning classes secure steady employment and pay off their debts an increased interest in furniture may be anticipated.

The method of selling on the installment plan is also growing in the retail furniture trade and is likely to increase still further in the future.

Taking both factors into consideration, the outlook is favorable for increased sales of furniture as trade improves and with it the demand for American hardwood lumber largely used in its manufacture.

IMPORTANCE TO AMERICAN LUMBER EXPORTERS

The British furniture industry is of paramount importance to American exporters of hardwood lumber and is to a large extent the balance wheel of the United States hardwood trade.

During 1926, according to official statistics published by the United States Department of Commerce, exports of hardwood lumber to the United Kingdom, largely used for the manufacture of furniture, were as shown in the following table:

In addition to these, other woods, such as tupelo, yellow poplar, black walnut, and chestnut, are used, the most important being the first named, which is being utilized for drawer sides and backs to an increasing extent.

COOPERAGE

IMPORT TRADE

Great Britain has little native timber available for manufacturing cooperage; consequently, practically all its needs have to be met by importation.

Imports of staves have been very erratic since the armistice, varying considerably, and during the past six years particularly so far as oak staves in brewery sizes are concerned-imports have been reduced to a minimum, owing to the necessity of absorbing the great stocks brought in during the boom year of 1920. During that year stave imports into Great Britain were valued at £3,640,806, and a large portion was left on the importers' hands, with disastrous results to many.

British statistics do not segregate the different kinds of cooperage imported, but lump them altogether under one general heading. The figures in the following table showing imports of staves of all kinds into Great Britain, therefore, include all kinds of staves, from the expensive "Memel" oak staves used by the brewing industry to the cheap fir (pine and spruce mixed) stave used principally for the manufacture of containers for cement and dry chemicals.

NOTE. From Apr. 1, 1923, the figures include the trade of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with the Irish Free State. From the same date the direct foreign trade of the Irish Free State has been excluded.