WHAT FORESTRY MEANS TO SOUTHERN COMMERCE 



By Ovid M. Butler, Forester, American Forestry Association. 

 Before the Commercial Secretaries Association, Nashville, Tennessee 



r DEEPLY appreciate this opportunity to address you 

 - on forestry as related to Southern commerce. It is 

 a subject which any organization of business men, and 

 most particularly one representing commercial leader- 

 ship, cannot long escape. Forestry is a business. Its 

 object is to grow timber crops on lands chiefly valuable 

 for timber crops. I believe that within ten years the 

 forest problem will be recognized as the most pressing 

 industrial problem confronting the South. 



That statement, it may be charged, is verbal extrav- 

 agance. Let us, therefore, briefly take stock of what 

 has happened, what is happening, and where the South 

 stands today in the competitive lumber markets of the 

 United States. For two decades this south land has 

 led the world in lumber production. For three genera- 

 tions it has led the world in the production of naval stores. 

 Since 1900, the southern pineries have contributed more 

 than 50 per cent of the softwood lumber consumed in 

 America. From the beginning of the naval stores indus- 

 try, they have contributed practically 100 per cent of the 

 turpentine and rosin used in this country. In addition, 

 they have supplied for export an amount greater than 

 the naval store exports of all other nations combined. 



With the possible exception of cotton, southern forests 

 have been the South's greatest producer of wealth for 

 more than a quarter of a century. They have brought 

 to your States 20,000 sawmills, representing an invest- 

 ment of more than half a billion dollars. They have 

 created an industry which stands first among industries 

 in six southern States, second in four and third in three. 

 They supply employment to almost half a milhon people. 

 In the last 20 years, they have brought into the South 

 from the sale of lumber and other forest products alone, 

 upwards of 10 billion dollars. 



In view of these impressive facts, it is unnecessary 

 to dwell upon the extent to which southern commerce 

 depends upon a continuous supply of raw wood. It 

 is well to bear in mind, however, the ramifying character 

 of this dependency. From your great furniture industry, 

 centering at High Point, North Carolina, to the oil 

 industry of Texas, the products of the forest are essen- 

 tial elements of business. Wood for boxes is as neces- 

 sary to the citrus industry of the South almost as the 

 fruit itself. Experience has long ago proven that the ease 

 and price at which an industry can obtain its wood re- 

 quirements often determines its ability to meet compe- 

 tition in the world's markets. 



Aimerican business, let us remember, is built upon 

 competition. The South today occupies the most dom- 

 inant competitive position of any region with respect to 

 the lumber trade. It is a common saying that southern 

 pine sets the price of softwood lumber. The reason 

 lies not in the fact that the South contains more than 



one-sixth of the nation's remaining softwood, although 

 that is a contributing factor, but in the fact that forest 

 exhaustion has eliminated other eastern regions as effec- 

 tive competitors. In that situation the South, by chance, 

 profits today merely because her forest capital is not 

 yet wholly spent. 



What has happened to place the South in this commer- 

 cially advantageous position? American lumbering, as 

 an industry, began with the early settlements in New 

 England. It spread slowly into New York and then 

 following 1850, in order to keep pace with the rapid 

 sweep westward of land settlement and commercial de- 

 velopment, it moved swiftly into Pennsylvania and on 

 into the Lake States. By 1880, the center of lumber 

 production had shifted to the Great Lakes region. Twelve 

 years later this region reached the peak of its lumber 

 production. In the meantime, the lumber-jack, followed 

 by the sawmill, had pushed into the great hardwood 

 forests of the Olhio Valley, the mixed forests of the 

 Appalachians and the rich pineries of the South Atlantic 

 and Gulf Coast States. In small numbers, they had begun 

 pushing across the Prairie States into the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and into the heavy forests of the Pacific Coast. 

 Following 1900, the Southern States lapidly took the lead 

 in lumber production. 



Step by step, the industry has moved westward, as 

 one region after another has been cut out first New 

 England, then New York, next Pennsylvania, following 

 that, the Lake States and finally the central hardwood 

 region. Today, the greatest {lumber markets in the 

 whole world lie at the very doors of these regions, but 

 by reason of exhaustion of their forests, they are help- 

 less victims of their own harvests. Their forest cup- 

 boards are virtually bare and their own industries must 

 compete one against another and with adjoining regions 

 for imporfted lumber transported from distant parts 

 at high freight rates. 



Of the original stand of saw timber in the United 

 States, only about two-fifths remain, 61 per cent of 

 which lies west of the great plains and 23 per cent in the 

 Southern States. Only 16 per cent in scattered frag- 

 ments remains in all the rest of the country, including 

 New England, the Middle Atlantic, the Central and the 

 Lake States. This great territory not only contains 60 

 per cent of the nation's population, but it is the richest 

 and most highly developed area in the country. It is 

 the hub of the world's greatest lumber markets. The 

 South's proximity to those great markets, coupled with 

 the absence of a strong competing region closer than 

 the Pacific Coast, 3,000 miles distant, give it a commercial 

 advantage unequalled in the history of American lum- 

 bering, if not in American business. 



But what is happening in the South? It is an old 



