The Uses of Wood 



per cord at the pulp mills, and even spruce stumps are bought 

 at I15 per thousand feet. This revolution of values brings 

 spruce up until it costs more than Southern pine in the market 

 a condition of affairs unthinkable in the lumber trade a few years 

 ago. 



Paper making has raised cottonwood and other soft, white 

 woods to a rank above ordinary hardwoods, among which they 

 were counted by foresters as mere nurse trees and forest weeds. 

 A state forester recently said: "If I could change all the trees 

 in the state forests to poplars I would add greatly to the wealth 

 these acres represent. The pulp and paper mills would take 

 every stick we could cut and beg for more. We could set our 

 own price." 



Twenty years ago white pine was still king of soft-wood 

 lumbers. Its day is past, partly owing to the exhaustion of the 

 virgin growth in great Northern pineries, partly by reason of the 

 exploitation of Southern pines. The "black sap" of Southern 

 pines, seasoned slowly in the lumber pile, darkened the wood and 

 made it impossible as a competitor of white pine in the markets. 

 But kiln-drying makes yellow pine white, so that the yellow 

 pines of the South now furnish handsome flooring, interior finish 

 and general building material in vast quantities. It is also used 

 for furniture and for ties. 



FOREST BY-PRODUCTS 



The Naval-Stores Industry. Turpentine gathering in the 

 longleaf pine woods began with the settlement of the country, 

 and forms one of its greatest forest industries. Vast quantities 

 of tar, rosin and turpentine have been consumed, chiefly in ship- 

 yards in this and other countries, until the steel craft replaced 

 the wooden. Now other industries consume the surplus output 

 of these turpentine orchards. 



A pocket several inches wide and deep is cut near the base 

 of a tree. It holds two or three pints of the resin.* The bark and 

 the outer wood to the depth of an inch are chipped off for a consider- 

 able distance above the pocket. The exposed wood bleeds resin, 

 which is regularly dipped from the pocket by a man with a ladle 



* Resin is the crude liquid ; rosin is the hard, brittle substance left after the turpentine 

 is extracted. 



529 



