THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 523 



" The well-timbered portion of west Florida commences with the southern border of Holmes county. This 

 region is now, however, nearly exhausted along water-courses large enough for rafting, while of late years canals 

 and ditches dug into the forest afford facilities for floating timber growing remote from streams to the mills. 

 According to those best informed regarding the amount of timber still standing in this section, there is scarcely 

 enough left between the Escambia and Choctawhatchee rivers, in western Florida, to keep the mills on the coast 

 supplied for another half-dozen years, even, if the whole of the pine standing could be made available. 



" The lumber business of Perdido bay is entirely concentrated at Millview, where three large saw-mills are 

 established. Thf. production of lumber commenced here in 1865, increasing rapidly from 10,000,000 feet, board 

 measure, in that year, to three and four times that amount. All the lumber manufactured upon Perdido bay is 

 sent to Pensacola by a railroad constructed for the purpose. Only about 400 pieces of hewed timber are shipped 

 from Millview, although the railroad has carried an average of 37,000,000 feet of lumber annually to Pensacola, 

 the maximum annual yield of the Millview mills having been 45,000,000 feet. 



" Pensacola is the most important port of lumber export on the Gulf coast. During the year ending August 

 30, 1879, 403 vessels, of a combined capacity of 217,487 tons, carried from the harbor of Pensacola 3,090,469 cubic 

 feet of hewed square timber, 3,769,527 cubic feet of sawed square timber, and 60,000,000 feet of sawed lumber, 

 board measure. Of the squared timber four fifths is shipped to Great Britain. 



" The peninsula between the junction of the Escambia and the bay of Saint Mary de Galves is low, and, along 

 the shore-line, bordered with marshes. The timber needed to supply the mills located upon the shores 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 still 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 establishment 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 mouth of the Blackwater and 

 use mostly water-power. The mill of Messrs. Milligan, ChafBn & Co., on this river, 20 miles above Milton, sends 

 28,000 pieces of square sawed timber to Pensacola, averaging 32 cubic feet each ; 5,000 such pieces are furnished by a 

 few very small water-mills higher up, swelling the whole amount of square timber to 33,000 pieces. The last-named 

 firm has acquired by purchase large tracts of public land along Black and Coldwater rivers. To reach the timber 

 growing on their land a canal 20 miles long, with sluices that intersect the small tributaries of these streams, has 

 been dug. By means of this canal a suflacient supply of logs is secured to keep the mill running through the year. 

 The large manufacturers of Bagdad have adopted a similar system, and by these means, and by tlie construction of 

 tramways tapping the more remote and isolated regions tributary to the waters of Black and Yellowwater rivers 

 toward the northern part of the state, the exhaustion of the timber lands througb 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. A sash, door, and blind factory located at Bagdad consumes a large amount of cypress lumber. This 

 is procured from the mills situated along the shores of the upper Choctawhatchee bay, and is grown along the banks 

 of the Choctawhatchee river. The cypress lumber is exclusively used in the manufacture of sashes, blinds, doors, 

 moldings, and particularly in the construction of houses, of which every year a considerable number is shipped 

 by the way of New Orleans to the treeless regions of western Louisiana and Texas. This establishment manufactures 

 a large amount of fencing, the rails of cypress, the posts of red and white cedar, rounded and capped. This is 

 shipped to Xew Orleans and to the settlements in southern Florida. Of late years it has commenced sawing pencil- 

 boards of red cedar. The logs, of very superior quality, are obttiined from the hummocks and bottom lands bordering 

 upon the Choctawhatchee. The lumber for this purpose must be entirely free from knots, of even, close grain, the 

 woody fibers perfectly straight. These logs are cut in sections 6 inches in length, and the carefully-selected pieces 

 sawed into slabs 2 inches broad and a quartet of an inch in thickness. Fifty gross of these slabs are packed in a 

 case, and the establishment produces about six hundred cases annually. These are mostly shipped to a pencil 

 factory in Jersey City, a small number going also to Germany. 



" The sawmills situated on the shores of Choctawhatchee bay extend from the mouth of Alaqua creek to 

 Freeport, and westward to Point Washington ; the logs sawed at these mills are for the most part brought down 

 by raft from the upper waters of the Choctawhatchee and its tributaries. The lumber sawed here is mostly long- 

 leaved pine, with a small amount of cypress. The product of these mills is mostly shipped to New Orleans in small 

 schooners carrying from 15,000 to 20,000 feet each. The capacity of the mills upon this bay is in excess of their 

 production, the difiBculty of obtaining logs causing most of them to remain shut during half the year. 



" The causes which up to the present time have prevented the destruction of the piue forests about Saint 

 Andrew's bay, which is traversed by one fine river and bordered by another, must be traced to the. difllculty of 

 navigating these streams and to the want of a convenient outlet to the Gulf at Apalachicola. There are few saw- 

 mills upon this bay, supplying only the local demand, and even these are furnished with logs floated down the 

 Chattahoochee from beyond the confines of the state." , 



