THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



537 



Tennessee by river. The magnificent hard woods common over much of the state can supply abundant material for 

 many important industries which already at the north sailer from the exhaustion and deterioration of the local 

 timber supply. 



The following rough estimates of the amount of the long-leaved and short-leaved pine standing iu the state have 

 been prepared by measuring upon a large-scale map areas occupied by the pine forests, which coincide almost exactly 

 with geological formations. From these areas the totals of clearings as returned by enumerators and all areas of 

 swamp, bottom lands, and prairies are deducted to obtain the extent of territory covered with pine forests. By 

 multiplying this area by the average stand of timber per acre, obtained by numerous observations in different 

 parts of the state, the following estimate of the amount of merchantable pine standing May 31, 1880, is reached: 



The principal point of lumber manufacture is Saint Charles, in Calcasieu parish, on the southern border of the 

 western pine forest. Lumber manufactured here is shipped east and west by rail, and in small schooners to Mexican 

 and West Indian ports. A comparatively small amount of lumber is manufactured at New Orleans from logs cut 

 in eastern Louisiana and towed through lake Pontchartraiu and the canals to the city, and along the river front 

 from logs rafted out of the Red, Little, Black, and other streams of northern Louisiana. New Orleans, however, is 

 principally supplied with lumber sawed at Gulf ports, in spite of its position with reference to the most valuable 

 hard-pine forests upon the continent, its large local demand for lumber and all saw-mill refuse, and its facilities for 

 export, which would seem to indicate that it must become the most important center of lumber manufacture and 

 distribution in the south. Small quantities of pine lumber have long been manufactured upon the Eed river near 

 Alexandria; short-leaved pine (Pinus mitis) is sawed at Shreveport, and in small quantities for local consumption at 

 other points in the northern parishes. 



MOSS GINNING. 



New Orleans is the center of the " rnoss-ginning " industry of the United States. The "moss" (Tillandsia 

 usneoides), a common epiphyte, growing in great quantities upon the cypress, live oak, and other southern trees, 

 is gathered, by men known as " swampers", in the swamps of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The 

 moss when gathered is piled near the swamps and allowed to rot during ten or twelve months. It loses in this 

 process about 90 per cent, of its weight, and is then shipped to New Orleans, where it is cleaned, dried, and ginned, 

 losing in this latter operation 35 per cent, in weight. The prepared moss is used in upholstery, either alone or 



