240 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT. 



The peninsula between the junction of the Escambia and the bay of 

 Saint Mary de Galves is low, and along the shore-line, bordered \vi^h 

 marshes. The timber needed to supply the mi'.Is located upon the short-s 

 of these waters has during the past forty years been drawn from this 

 region, and when new forests have replaced the original growth they have 

 'been cut over and over again, and stilil furnish a small amount of timber, 

 as the turpentine distiller has not followed the log-getter in these regions, 

 the supply of timber here, however, at present is too small to be taken 

 into account in view of the enormously increased demands of the mills. 

 There are three large mills on Blackwater bay producing 40,000,000 feet of 

 lumber a year. Three-fourths of this lumber is produced in the estabUsh- 

 ment of Messrs. Simpson & Co., near the mouth of the Blackwater river, 

 at Bagdad, about half a mile below Milton. Mills sawing square timber are 

 situated 20 or 30 miles above the Blackwater and use mostly water-power. 

 * * * The exhaustion of the timber-lands through the whole 



breadth of western Florida, as far as the banks of the Choctawhatchee 

 river, will certainly be accomplished before the end of the next five years. 



In Spite of these gloomy predictions, the lumber industry of the 

 West Florida pine hills is still in a flourishing condition; though 

 of course it has its little ups and downs, like most other industries. 

 Although no statistics for single regions are available, the annual 

 production of lumber in this region at the present time is probably 

 nearly as great, if not as great, as it ever was. At the time Dr. 

 Mohr wrote the words quoted above, there were no railroads in 

 West Florida east of Pensacola, and millions of magnificent pine 

 tiees remote from the coast and waterways were inaccessible and 

 practically unknown. Even yet lumbering operations have not ex- 

 tended more than a few miles from the railroads and rivers and the 

 coast, and there is an enormous amount of timber still standing, the 

 existence of which a traveler following the regular transportation 

 routes would hardly suspect. In September, 19 10, the writer 

 v/alked for several hours through virgin pine forests that had not 

 even been turpentined, on the west side of Alaqua Creek between 

 Portland and DeFuniak Springs; and just a little farther west, 

 in the same region, the government established in 1909 the "Choc- 

 tawhatchee National Forest," an area of several hundred square 

 miles very sparsely settled and well timbered. Ten months later a 

 great deal of fine "round timber" (i. e., pines not turpentined) was 

 seen between DeFuniak Springs and the Alabama line, and in May, 

 19 14, the forests between Vernon and the Choctawhatchee River, in 

 Washington County, were found to be scarcely lumbered, thougli 

 nearly all turpentined. 



