Opinion ID: 1909651
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The pulpwood.

Text: What is pulpwood? We are unaided by the evidence before us in arriving at a definition, but we feel that the nature of pulpwood is so much a matter of common knowledge, especially in this state where its production is a major industry, that we may properly take judicial notice that pulpwood denotes wood logs, peeled or unpeeled, usually cut to four foot length, and suitable and intended for manufacture into wood pulp commonly used in making paper. See Inhabitants of Bradley v. Penobscot Chemical Fibre Co., supra; Bondur v. Le Bourne, 79 Me. 21, 7 A. 814. It partakes far more of the attributes of so-called saw-logs than it does the attributes of manufactured lumber. Although all logs have had something done to them changing them from their original state of growing trees, the statute itself carefully distinguishes between logs and manufactured lumber. Logs in any town to be manufactured therein, and all manufactured lumber, R. S.1944, Chap. 81, Sec. 13, subsec. 1, as amended; See Desjardins v. Jordan Lumber Co., 124 Me. 113, 126 A. 486. The work done in producing pulpwood is preliminary to, and preparatory for, the ultimate intended process of making wood pulp. Inhabitants of Bradley v. Penobscot Chemical Fibre Co., supra. As was said in United States v. Pierce, 2 Cir., 147 F. 199, 201, rossed pulpwood is not a manufactured timber in any true sense. It would be absurd to call hand-peeled logs manufactured timber. We hold that pulpwood is not manufactured lumber within the meaning of R.S.1944, Chap. 81, Sec. 13, subsec. 1, as amended. Rather does it fall within the meaning of logs as used therein. Upon the evidence here, these pulpwood logs were not in Houlton to be manufactured therein, nor were they employed in trade or in the mechanic arts in Houlton, in connection with any store, storehouse, shop, mill, wharf, landing place, or shipyard. The pulpwood was taxable in Bangor, that being the residence of the taxpayer, and appellant here is entitled to abatement of the tax thereon.