SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



conditions are hard and means of transportation are 

 simply nonexistent. 



"Neither plum nor buttonwood can be pulped, and as 

 a combination wood for both paper mills and extract 

 factories probably the most promising in the South is 

 the Australian pine. It is widely spread through the 

 tropical and subtropical areas; is a fairly fast grower 

 and seeds quite readily. It would respond to intelligent 

 forestry methods." 



For years many appraising, speculative eyes have 

 been cast at two varieties of what in New England we 

 call "weed trees" the sumac and the scrub oak. My 

 trite questions brought forth some new information. 



We import normally some two thousand tons of 

 Sicilian sumac leaves, from which the commercial tan- 

 ning extract is prepared. Russell and his helpful stu- 

 dents made comparative tannins of domestic and im- 

 ported sumac and found that our so-called dwarf or 

 winged variety is quite as good. The difficulty is the 

 high cost of stripping the leaves from the stems. The 

 Sicilians pick both stems and leaves and by the good 

 old Biblical processes of flailing and winnowing remove 

 most of the stems. This primitive operation has long 

 been mechanized and with scattered plants to do this 

 part of the work, sumac might become an incidental 

 Southern crop. The leaves are gathered at a season 

 when regular farm work is light and a family could 



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