The development of wood utilization in the 19th, 20th
and 21st Centuries
by Horst Schulz
Introduction
It is difficult to link the development of wood utilization
to the history of IUFRO. In the past, many developments
in the utilization of wood were only sporadically initiated
or accompanied by wood research. The close interaction
between the woodworking industries, their inventors and
craftsmen on the one hand and wood scientists on the other
make it hard to pinpoint the merits of particular individuals
and to assess the extent of their contributions to the history
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of wood utilization. Wood utilization and a broad knowledge
of wood go back a long way, while systematic wood research
in specialized institutes is a fairly recent development, except
for isolated attempts as, for example, by the Frenchman Du
Hamel du Monceau as early as 1767.
The present anniversary, however, which celebrates
IUFRO's start in the 19th century, is a welcome occasion
to analyze wood utilization in the 19th and 20th centuries
and to take a bold look at prospects for the 21st century.
Wood Utilization in the 19th Century
Twentieth century people tend to believe that it is our cen-
tury that has changed the world to an extent unequalled by
For personal use only.
any other period. This is true for a wide range of subjects,
but is not for wood utilization. In the ancient relationship
between man and wood no period experienced more drastic
changes than the 19th century. In this context, an important
milestone is the rapid progress in the use of coal in what have
become today's industrialized countries.
While mineral coal, soft coal and peat had been recognized
energy sources in a few large cities such as London for a
long time (Tillman 1978), wood and charcoal remained the
most important sources of energy in almost all countries until
far into the 19th century. They were used for domestic
heating and cooking and supplied much of the energy
demands of industries producing iron, glass, salt and bricks.
Because of their huge fuel demands many of the early indus-
tries were located near large forests (Radkau and Schafer
1987). In Europe and America the term "coal" usually sig-
nified ' 'charcoal". Youngquist and Fleischer (1977)
reported: Charcoal "was the fuel used in iron making and
glass making; it was also used to make gunpowder, printer's
ink, and black paint. Charcoal also served as a filter to purify
liquids, as a deodorizer, and as insulation for ice storage.
In the home the uses of charcoal were more surprising. It
served as good toothpowder and, swallowed in small doses,
was said to 'settle the stomach'."
Institute for Wood Research, Munich University, Wimererstrasse 45,
8000 Munich 40, Federal Republic of Germany.
Paper presented on the occasion of the International Union of Forestry
Research Organizations (IUFRO) Centennial Meeting, Berlin, September
1992. The paper was originally published in German in the journal Holz
als Roh- und Werkstoff Vol. 51(3), 1993.
The assistance of Mrs. H. Meier for the English translation, and Mr. L.
Wagner and Mr. M. Sacker for statistics is gratefully acknowledged.
AUGUSTIAO~T1993, VOL. 69, NO. 4, THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE
For quite some time, opinions differed as to the suitability
of mineral coal as an energy source and it was often com-
pared unfavourably with charcoal. For many people, coal
served, in a transitional period, as a wood-saving substitute
(Radkaur and Schafer 1987). This, however, changed very
quickly. In the Berlin of the 1860s, every citizen used as
much as three-quarters of a cubic metre of fuelwood a year,
while only 30 years later consumption dropped to a third of
that amount (Hilf and Rohrig 1938).
In the USA the quantities of wood used for energy up to
1880 surpassed that of any other resources (Tillman 1978).
The USA railroads in 1869 are reported to have used over
40,000 cubic metres of fuelwood a day just to fire their
locomotives, i.e., many million cubic metres per annum
(Youngquist and Fleischer 1977).
Against this historical background it is hardly surprising
that by the turn of the 20th century about 50 per cent of the
annual cut was still used as fuelwood in Germany (Mantel
1973). In 1875 it had been more than 70 per cent.
In other parts of Europe developments took a similar and
sometimes even slower course. When assessing figures such
as those given above we should remember that until the sub-
stitution by coal, fuelwood and charcoal had not only to pro-
vide the energy required for cooking and heating in Central
Europe and in the northern hemisphere generally, but also
to supply more and more energy for industries that had
already existed for a long time. Herein lies the main differ-
ence to current fuelwood consumption in developing coun-
tries which almost exclusively serves domestic purposes such
as cooking. An awareness of the necessity for sustainable
forestry developed fairly early near industrial sites in Europe
which had a long history of forest exploitation. It comes as
no surprise that the author of one of the first books about
reforestation and forest management as early as 1713 was
a mining engineer (von Carlowitz 1713).
As fuelwood and charcoal were increasingly replaced by
other materials in the course of the 19th century, new uses
for wood were found which subsequently owed their fast
development to the fact that resources were set free by the
decreasing fuelwood sector. At the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th centuries these resources were mainly
absorbed by the paper making industry.
The demand for paper rose steadily in the 18th and 19th
centuries. The main raw material for paper production was
rags (used textiles) which had been scarce everywhere for
a long time. Rag collecting was subject to strict national regu-
lations which forbade their export in order to protect domestic
paper industries. In the context of this meeting in Berlin it
is interesting to note that Frederic the Second of Prussia
issued a P ~ G c ~ ~ decree ~ ~ in~1774 Y forbidding the
export of rags, paper and scrap parchment. Rumour has it
that in the 19th century even the cloth wrappings of Egyp-
tian mummies were misappropriated and used to paper.
Also, sharp competition is said to have existed between paper
manufacturers and the Egyptian railway which allegedly
stoked its locomotives with mummies (Sandermann 1988).
413
 Obviously, alternative raw materials for paper malang had
been sought for quite some time. One of the first to point
out that wood fibres might be used for this purpose was Jacob
Christian Schaffer, in Germany, who managed to produce
paper samples from many different wood species after 1760
(Sandermann 1988).
This still did not lead to a real break-through. Only around
and after 1850 did the growing realization that wood would
be a suitable material to end the prevailing scarcity of paper
lead to numerous investigations, above all in Sweden, Bri-
tain, France, the USA and Germany. These efforts were so
successful that all major processes for making pulp and
mechanical pulp went into production before the turn of the
century. Even before 1900 mechanical pulp was being con-
verted into cellulose fibres (Radkau and Schafer 1987).
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Today, both pulp and paper ari based almost exclusively dn
the raw material wood and this will not change in the future.
It is not onlv the develo~mentof wood from its use as fuel-
wood to that i s raw matirial for paper that marks the 19th
century as a time of great change. In many other fields wood
was suddenlv dis~lacedfrom uses which had been its tradi-
tional domain fo; thousands of years.
Horses and carts remained for some further decades but
were supplemented by the railway. Millions of wooden cross-
ties or sleepers were needed to keep up with the rapidly
expanding railroads whose tracks increased worldwide from
40,000 km to 900,000 km between 1850 and 1900. Horse-
drawn carts and railroad carriages were constantly being
For personal use only.
improved and created a wide field for the multiple use of
wood. American historians consider railroad workers and
loggers the most important professional groups in opening
up the continent (Fogel 1970) and their significance is placed
far above that of cowboys, the glorified heroes of countless
movies. Wooden plank roads were built to make the country
more accessible, but were later abandoned as requiring too
much maintenance (Robertson 1964; Youngquist and
Fleischer 1977). New uses for wood were opened up by the
new communication systems. Millions of telegraph poles and,
later, poles for electricity and the telephone were required
all over the world. In the USA the demand for sawn-wood
- in particular for housing - rose sharply after 1850 (Hindle
1985), reaching a peak just after the turn of the century (Sedjo
1990).
The abundance of timber in the USA has marked people's
preference for wooden houses and evolved a typical housing
style, often in imitation of brickwork from the "old world".
To this day "wood has retained its essential role in housing
in the USA which provides the largest single market for
lumber, plywood and a wide variety of other wood products"
(Youngquist and Fleischer 1977). It is interesting to note that
the first patent for a mechanical invention to be issued in
America in 1646 was given to J. Jenks for improved saw-
mills (Hindle 1985).
Until and well into the 19th century, wood was also the
most important material for mechanical engineering. An
example of this is the profession of mill wright, special
engineers for mills, who were in great demand as particu-
larly versatile experts with an excellent knowledge of the
properties of many different types of wood (Klernrn 1989).
To quote Mumford (1934) on the significance of wood used
in mechanical engineering as the basis for further technical
development: "Most of the key machines and inventions of
414 AUGUSTIAO~T1993, VOL. 69, NO. 4, THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE
the later industrial age were first developed in wood before
they were translated into metal: Wood provided the finger
exercises of the new industrialism." Apart from a few
specialized parts and model construction wood lost its irnpor-
tant role in mechanical engineering in the course of the 19th
century.
But there were also other, clear signs that wood was being
replaced by other materials. The most striking example is,
of course, shipbuilding. For centuries man's ability to build
and steadily improve large wooden ships had left its imprint
on the world map. Up to the middle of the last century, ship-
building was still dominated by the use of wood. In 1849
the head of the naval gunnery school in the English Royal
Navy was reported to declare: "I think iron very inferior
to wood for warlike purposes.. . There is no iron vessel that
can be built that will resist shot, unless it be of such a weight
that she will not float!" In March 1862 however, the death-
knell sounded for the Royal Navy's wooden warships when
American iron ships blew up and sank two of them near
Hampton Roads. This proof of the superiority of iron ships
brought the construction of large wooden ships to a precipi-
tate end (Albion 1965). For commercial shipping too, iron
was quick to replace wood.
In summary it can be said that before the 19th century wood
was indispensible for a tremendous number of uses. The great
importance of wood for civilization until far into the 19th
century is best illustrated by several quotations. Lapham
(1855, quoted in Perlin 1991), in evaluating the factors that
have led to America's astounding wealth, says: "Few
persons.. . realize.. . the amount we owe to the native forests
of our country for the capital and wealth our people are now
enjoying. Yet without the fuel, the buildings, the fences, fur-
niture and a thousand utensils, and machines of every kind,
the principal materials for which are taken directly from the
forest, we should be reduced to a condition of destitution.. .
Anyone who studies closely and carefully the elements that
have contributed to that greatness will find cheap lumber and
cheap fuel (wood) the greatest of all factors." This was
because "Cheap houses, cheap bread and cheap transporta-
tion for passengers and freights, are among the fundamental
elements of a nation's growth and prosperity." This seems
to be confirmed by Mackay (1849, quoted in Perlin 1991),
who estimated that the English had to spend about six times
more than Americans to lay a mile of track for the railway.
The Frenchman Braudel(1985) in discussing a number of
books on the development of civilization, says: "On account
of its great versatility wood gained enormous significance
and the large forest areas in Europe were therefore a great
asset and formed the basis of its power while Islam, due to
meagre and dwindling wood supplies, found itself losing
more and more ground."
Competitive Materials and New Uses from the
19th to the 20th Centuries
In the course of the 19th century wood faced increasing
competition from other raw materials. The wooden age
seemed to come gradually to an end as the transition was
made from what was mainly a handicrafts era to the new
industrial era. Wood had been ideal for the handicrafts era
and was now turned into a raw and working material which
adapted less easily than other materials to the requirements
 1 .oo
I I 1
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Figure. 1. Annual world cut of fuelwood (above) and industrial
roundwood (below) per head (after FA0 (1991) and German Fed-
eral Statistics Office (1990, 1991)).
of industrialization. The great variety of wood species and
their properties, the differences between trees of the same
species, the variations in properties related to tree parts, from
root to crown, and the changes that occur as young trees grow
old make wood a distinctly individualistic material. When
For personal use only.
naturally grown wood is used in boards, trusses, etc., its het-
erogenous characteristics have to be taken into account. This
heterogeneity tends to defy the requisite uniformity in indus-
trial processes for the manufacture of mass products. Here
homogeneous materials are generally preferred. A further
drawback is the anisotropy of wood, i.e., the fact that wood
properties vary in different directions in relation to the tree
axis. In this context differences in swelling and shrinking
as well as strength properties parallel or perpendicular to
grain are particularly significant.
This background i.e., the endeavour to reduce the
anisotropy and heterogeneity, explains the subsequent
development of products such as plywood. Here, wood is
peeled parallel to grain and these thin veneers are then glued
together, with layers parallel to the grain alternating with
those perpendicular to the grain. The tendency of wood to
move in different directions is being checked and wood is
thus turned into a "tame" material. Low strength values of
wood perpendicular to the grain are improved at the same
time. Also, the natural tree dimensions are overcome: The
width of a piece of timber is determined by the diameter of
a tree and the position within the cross-section whereas a
piece of plywood is independent of both. After the first
attempts at plywood manufacturing in the 19th century, ply-
wood quickly became popular and is today produced in
tremendous quantities. Almost all construction and working
materials developed from wood later on were based on the
principle of improved homogenization and reduced
anisotropy .
The same train of thought was followed in the develop-
ment of both fibreboard in the 1920s - which was closely
related to that of paper - and of particleboard which
flourished in the 1950s and is now used all over the world.
The significant difference to previous developments was the
AUGUSTIAO~T1993, VOL. 69, NO. 4, THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE
Developed countries Developing countries
Bill. m3 . .. B i l l .
Figure 2. Annual world roundwood cut in industrial and developing
countries (after FA0 (1991) and German Federal Statistics Office
use of very small wood particles in these panel types and
the resultant greater homogeneousness. Small particles
moreover make panels largely independent of the quality and
the age of the raw material source, i.e., the tree; also, they
can be manufactured from the enormous amounts of wood
waste produced in sawmills.
Particleboard was followed by a number of further inno-
vations based on the versatile principle "small particles plus
glue", such as Oriented Strand Board (OSB) with relatively
large but oriented chips, waferboard, also with large but
almost square chips and finally Medium Density Fibreboard
(MDF), made from fibres or fibre strands plus glue, which
is more closely related to particleboard and lumber than
earlier types of fibreboard.
The idea of homogenized wood formed the basis for yet
another product, viz. glularn. Here we are dealing with giant
particles, boards which are glued together in parallel and thus
achieve oriented strength similar to that of grown beams as
the lamination reduces the effect of weak points. Following
the first inventions at the turn of the century glulam con-
structions have become increasingly popular since 1970. But
in contrast to wood-based panels, glulam requires good
quality roundwood.
In any of the above developments during the transitional
period from the 19th to the 20th century wood proved enor-
mously versatile and adaptable to human requirements. We
will certainly not be able to do without the adaptability of
this valuable raw material in the future.
Wood in Our Times
As regards the present the question is whether wood still
plays an important part in world economy. First, it must be
pointed out that in past decades and despite the menacing
population explosion every world citizen still has two thirds
of a cubic metre of wood at his disposal annually. Half of
this amount still goes into fuelwood (Fig. 1).
Considering this fairly large amount still used per head
we have to ask ourselves to what extent annual wood utili-
zation has managed to keep step with the population explo-
sion at the price of forest devastation and exploitation. The
steep rise in wood demand in those developing countries
which use it predominantly as fuelwood is particularly
415
 I Hard
Wood
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Figure 4. Comparison of annual world harvest of roundwood and

other renewable materials (after German Federal Statistics Office
(1990, 1991)).

as the fact that the largest portion goes into fuelwood. The
V annual available amount of forest products of two-thirds of
Roundwood Fuelwood Industrial a cubic metre per head currently corresponds to a harvest
Roundwood of 3.5 billion cubic metres or, in terms of dry substance
For personal use only.

Figure 3. Annual world cut of softwood and hardwood in indus-
trial and developing countries (after FA0 (1991)).
alarming, whereas developed countries use a much larger
portion of industrial roundwood (Fig. 2).
This industrial roundwood is divided into four main
sectors: sawnwood with 26%, other industrial roundwood
such as pitprops, poles etc. with 7 % , pulp and paper with
over 10% and wood based materials, i.e., above all particle-
boards, with 5.5% (Table 1).
There has been an increase, in the past decade, in round-
wood consumption used for pulp and paper making and in
panel manufacture, while consumption of sawnwood and
other industrial roundwood has declined worldwide since the
early 1960s.
A break-down of the world's annual cut into hardwoods
and softwoods is also revealing (Fig. 3) and shows a dis-
tinct preference for hardwoods on a worldwide basis as well
production, 2.1 billion tons, using a conversion factor of
0.6 g/cm3.
These quantities are beyond the common grasp and may
perhaps be better understood through a comparison with other
raw materials. Since some raw material uses are better
described in terms of weight while others are preferably
expressed in volume, both will be used here (Table 2). On
both counts wood is seen to occupy a dominating position.
Complementary to this comparison with nonrenewable
resources another interesting comparison is with renewable
crops (Fig. 4). Here too, the importance of wood becomes
apparent as a renewable resource for the present and the
future. A look at past and present consumption shows that
wood has been and still is being used in inconceivable
quantities.
Wood is very valuable because it is required in quantity
and because it grows in many regions all over the world under
environmentally favourable conditions and is particularly ver-
satile in the way it can be used.

Table 1. Annual world roundwood consumption, in product groups

= 1800 = 1900
estimate estimate 1961-63' 1987-89'
(1000 m5)
Annual roundwood harvest 1,812,000 1,141,500 2,079,600 3,425,450
Fuelwood 1,735,000 836,000 1,041,550 1,760,630
Industrial roundwood 77,000 305,500 1,038,050 1,664,820
Sawlogs and veneer logs 41,000 185,000 61 1,920 884,310
Roundwood for pulp and paper - 24,000 196,360 357,550
Roundwood for wood based panels - - 61,170 187,710
Other industrial roundwood 36,000 96,500 168,600 235,250
' ~ f t e rFood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (1991).

416 1993, VOL. 69, NO. 4, THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE

AUGUSTIAO~~T
 Welt Table 2. Comparison of annual world production of various raw
materials (after FA0 (1991) and German Federal Statistics Office (1990,
Worfd 1991))
Billion tonnes Billion m3
Roundwood 2.1
Industrial roundwood 1.O
Cement 1.1
Steel 0.8
Plastics 0.09
Aluminum 0.02

Future Prospects
An analysis of prospects for the future is bound to reveal
facts bordering on the dramatic. The future is dominated by
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a single factor, the increase in world population. As shown

in Figure 5 nothing seems to be able to keep step with this
steeply rising curve - it leaves everything far behind. It
appears as if this was not true for fossil resources such as
coal and crude oil whose production managed to keep up with
the population explosion for quite some time (Fig. 5). The
question however, is how long can this continue and at what
cost to world ecology?
There is only one conclusion to be drawn from the above
comparison between population increase, coal and oil supply
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 and annual forest products harvest: All over the world wood
and forestry are bound to become more and more important
Figure 5. World population since 1800 and consumption of round- (Fig. 6 ) -The Three-Phase Theory in Figure 6 assumes that
For personal use only.

wood, hard coal and crude oil (after FA0 (1991) and German Fed- a period in which wood seemed largely replaceable will be
era1 Statistics Office (1990, 1991)). 0 , population; - - -, coal; followed by one where the raw material wood will yet again
-, crude oil; o o o, wood. have great significance.

I I1 I11
n
~ I
Part displacement of
Re laceable
Renewable versatile
I
important wood uses materials gain
but development of increasing
C
0

Early period. 1850 2000

Figure 6 . History of wood utilization - three phase theory (after German Federal Statistics Office (1990, 1991)

AUGUSTIAO~T1993, VOL. 69, NO. 4, THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE 417

 Conclusion
Worldwide concern focuses on the question of whether we
need more forests to sequester atmospheric C 0 2 (e.g.,
Moulton and Richards 1990; Burschel and Kiirsten 1992).
There can be no doubt that more forests are imperative, not
only for this purpose, but also to increase the world's wood
supply as the most important renewable, environmentally
beneficial and abundantly growing raw and working material
and to make sure it remains available for future generations.
No-one can release us - the foresters of the 20th century
- from the moral obligation to make sure that an equal or
even greater supply of wood is produced for future genera-
tions than we have claimed for ourselves.
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Braudel, F. 1985. Sozialgeshichte des 15.- 18. Jahrhunderts.
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unm
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