HARDWOOD RECORD 



15 



and third and perhaps fourth growth. 

 The botany of this wood is very much in- 

 volved, and the tree is interbred with types 

 of a similar character, so that it is almost 

 impossible to make any botanical classifica- 

 tion which will cover all the variety known 

 as North Carolina pine. The original growth 

 was first known as rosemary, but now we 

 have old-field pine, straw pine, slash pine 

 and a great many other local names for it. 

 The first nameil cuines from the fact that 



KRUIT AXD FOLIAGE NdliTIl tAKUl.l.XA 

 PINE. 



the tree often springs up on fields exhausted 

 for agricultural purposes. North Carolina 

 pine has wonderful recuperative powers; in 

 fact, the greatest of any wood in general 

 commercial use growing in the United States. 

 Under favorable conditions it will show an 

 annual accretion of six per cent, and perhaps 



even the average growth will show more than 

 four per cent. No logical forestry methods 

 have ever been practiced in its regrowing. 

 Stock has been perpiitted to run at large 

 through it, ground fires have devastated it, 

 and it has always been grossly neglected. In 

 spite of all this, it has reproduced itself at 

 a rapid rate, and the output of the lumber 

 is actually increasing rather than diminish- 

 ing as the years go by. Under conservative 

 forest management North Carolina pine 

 promises more to investors from a forestry 

 standpoint than any other wood in the 

 United States. Today the run of logs, in 

 contrast with the large smooth timber of the 

 old days, is pretty small and rough, making 

 the average quality very much lower than 

 formerly. 



The early methods employed in the manu- 

 facture of loblolly were very unsatisfactory. 

 The lumber was produced by small ground 

 mills, and as the wood was prone to stain 

 and blue, it came upon the market in very 

 undesirable shape and even to the point of 

 dote. Kilns were introduced (originally smoke 

 kilns), which improved the product mate- 

 rially, but with the more recent introduction 

 of steam and hot air dry kiln methods the 

 lumber now goes upon the market in just 

 as good physical condition as any of the 

 yellow pines. A good deal of this lum- 

 ber is exported, but the largest consumption 

 is along the northern and eastern seaboards, 

 where it is employed very generally 

 for flooring, ceiling, sheathing and to a very 

 large extent in box making. A comparative- 

 ly small portion of the wood goes into dimen- 

 sion material, and a very little into lumber. 

 However, some markets, notably Baltimore, 

 employ North Carolina pine almost exclusive- 

 ly in house building, for sills, joists, stud- 

 ding, rafters and sheathing. Philadelphia is 

 another large consuming market which uses 



North Carolina pine for this purpose quite 

 extensively. For rough use in New Jersey 

 and Maryland it is almost universally em- 

 ployed. 



The large picture accompanying this article 

 is typical of the virgin growth of the 

 Carolinas, and i.s from a photograph made 

 by the editor of the H.\kdwood Record near 



STAND OV OLD FIELD GROWTH NORTH 

 CAROLINA PINE. 



Georgetown, S. C, on the property of the 

 Atlantic Coa.st Lumber Corporation, Ltd. The 

 smaller picture of old-field ' pine is from a 

 photograph made in southern "Virginia near 

 the North Carolina line, on one of the prop- 

 erties of the Wiley, Harker & Camp Com- 

 pany of New York. 



Hardwood Interests of S t . L o u i 



No .single factor has entered to a greater 

 extent into the development of the St. Louis 

 hardwood industry than the effort, both or- 

 ganized and individual, of local dealers. Be- 

 cause these dealers have made the most of 

 their opportunities is largely the reason that 

 St. Louis is today the greatest distributing 

 center for hardwoods in the world. True, the 

 splendid geographical location with reference 

 to the great producing districts, coupled with 

 the unsurpassed transportation facilities, 

 m.ake St. Louis the logical gateway for the 

 hardwoods of the South; but to the local 

 dealers must be given the full measure of 

 credit for keeping this gateway teeming with 

 traffic, by their energy and foresight. 



A history of a nation Ls a histoiy of its 

 people, and a history of the hardwood in- 

 dustry is a history of the men who deal in 

 that commodity. Of the men who have been 

 largely instrumental in elevating the Mound 

 City to its present exalted position in lumber 

 history, too much praise cannot be spoken. 



St. Louis enjoys a world-wide reputation 

 of being a dependable market the year round 

 for all kinds of hardwoods. This reputation 

 has not been defended, especially during the 

 past year, without some effort. With the 

 continual .shifting of the producing centers, 

 tlie dealers of St. Louis have gone into the 

 untraveled highways and byways of the South 

 until the hum of their mills is heard today 

 wherever a stick of hardwood timber stands. 

 Not only have the men of the Mound City 

 been zealous in locating stands of hardwood 

 timber and planting mills to harvest the 

 same, but they have kept their mills busy 

 pouring a steady stream of lumber into St. 

 Louis, regardless of possible overproduction. 

 This, more than any other factor, perhaps, 

 has made the city what it is — the champion 

 hardwood distributing center of the world. 

 In this the hearty cooperation of the rail- 

 roads, which followed the blazed trail of the 

 ' ' cruisers ' ' into the forests with their tracks 

 of steel has been of inestimable vabie. 



The hardwood fraternity of St. Louis may 

 be said to include two classes of dealers: 

 those who maintain local yards, and those who 

 operate from St. Louis offices, shipping direct 

 from the mills in the South. There are ap- 

 proximately sixteen large hardwood yards in 

 the Mound City at this writing, and every 

 one of them is well stocked. The visible sup- 

 ply in these local yards at practically all 

 times of the year is close to 200,000,000 feet. 

 Besides, many of the shippers who maintain 

 yards in St. Louis also keep well stocked 

 yards in the producing districts. These, 

 coupled with the yards in control of local 

 dealers, makes a practically inexhaustible 

 supply of hardwood lumber to be drawn from 

 St. Louis operators. It not infrequently h.ap- 

 pens that when large buyers elsewhere are 

 experiencing difficulties in having orders filled, 

 St. Louis stands ready to make shipments on 

 short notice. And here enters another factor 

 which has caused many an eastern buyer to 



