19 



THE LUMBER TRADE JOURNAL 



[Xew Orleans, La., March 15, 1912. 



The Wood Using Industries of Mississippi. 



Bureau of Wood Utilization of Forest Service Makes Complete Report Showing Wonderful Re 

 sources of State and Necessity for Additional Lumber Consuming Factories 



Near to Sources of Raw Material. 



NOTE. 



The following report was compiled by C. W. Gould, 

 Forest Agent, and Hu Maxwell, Expert, under the 

 direction of H. S. Sackett, Chief, Office of Wood 

 Utilization, Forest Service, United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. It is published and thus made 

 available to the public through the courtesy of the 

 LUMBER TRADE JOURNAL, New Orleans. Louisiana. 



CONTENTS. 



hilly. In some parts of it the soil is very deep, 

 sandy and loose, and where ravines cut into it, 

 washing and erosion are apt to be great. One of 

 the problems which the people are called upon to 

 meet is the checking of this erosion. It seems to be 

 worse in abandoned lands which were long culti- 

 vated and then left comparatively bare and unpro- 

 tected against the impact of heavy rains and the 

 cutting power of torrents. This trouble is not seri- 

 ous in the low, flat, swamp regions. The small 

 amount of clay in much of the soil causes a lack 

 Page of D ' n ding material and increases the liability of the 

 Introduction 19 surface to wash. This disadvantage concerns agri- 



Kinds of wood 'used'' 20 cultural interests more than forestry, but it also 



j neg 20 has much to do with the growing of trees on waste 



Longleaf pine 20 land. At any rate, a tree cover on such land has 



Shortleaf pine 20 tn e effect of lessening erosion by breaking the im- 



Loblolly pine 20 P act ^ h eavv rains and also by binding the soil with 



Cuban pine 20 interlacing roots. Thick sod serves that purpose as 



Cypress '.'.'. V.V.'.'.V.V.'. '.'.'. '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 21 well as trees. 



The oaks The principal low-lying region of the state is in- 

 White oaks eluded in the Yazoo delta, in the western part, along 



Post oak, the Mississippi. It embraces about 7,000 square 



Cow oak miles, extending from near the Tennessee line south- 



Overcup oak ward. It is a tract of great fertility one of the 



Chinquapin oak richest in the United States, and its soil is of great 



depth. The surface is diversified with swamps, lakes, 



Live oak 21 bayous, rivers, sloughs, cane brakes, forests, prai- 



Red oaks *| ries, but it all averages very low. Geological agen- 

 cies for ages have been raising the bed of the Mis- 

 sissippi by depositing sediment in the channel and 

 Yellow oak ti upon tne bankS) tnus elevating the river above the 



;F ur 2J level of its flood plain, and causing much stagnant 



bpanish >ak <2l or s i u ggj sn wa ter in the region. Extensive systems 



vvater tan o j (j^es or levees have been built to confine rivers 



Blackjack and' blue' lack" 22 to their cnan nels, and much of the land once so 



_,. often subject to overflow as to be of little use for 



p B 22 agriculture, has been reclaimed, and only in periods 



' A of excessive floods is it now inundated. The Delta 



Nutm hickor 22 re s ion nas ha(J and stm nas S reat forest resources. 



Water hickory 22 Bordering immediately on the gulf, or rather on 



Mockernut hickory Mississippi Sound, which is a body of comparatively 



Shagbark hickory shallow water separated from the Gulf by a chain 



The gums 22 of low islands ten or twenty miles off the coast, is 



Black gum a narrow strip of flat marsh, only a few feet above 



Red gum hig<h tide, and much of it subject to overflow when 



The elms strong winds are on shore. This area represents the 



White elm encroachment of land on the sea by the washing in 



Slippery elm and deposit of sediment from the higher country. 



Cedar elm In prehistoric times, according to the opinions of 



Wing elm 22 geologists, the Gulf of Mexico extended hundreds of 



Other woods miles inland, along the low plain of the Mississippi 



Industries valley, and covered the Delta of the Yazoo. The 



Planing-mill products process of filling the gulf has gone on during ages 



! and crates and sim continues, though very slowly, and the land 



Furniture j us t r jging out of the water is covered with grass 



Vehicle and vehicle parts ...... and rushes . when thls land is sufficiently dry, for- 



Sash, doors, blinds, and general millwork. . 24 este take possession of it. 



Handles 25 



Agricultural implements 25 For a long time Mississippi was greatly handi- 



'Fixtures 25 capped in a commercial way because it had no deep- 

 Miscellaneous 26 water harbor on its eighty-five miles of coast. The 



Summary by industries 26 slow and long-continued process of the land sedi- 



Future supply of timber 26 ment encroaching upon the water has filled the 



Woods apportioned among industries. ...... 27 sounds and bays and made them shallow, destroy- 



Average cost of woods in the industries'. . . . 27 ing deep harbors if they once existed. On the coast 



Additional statistics 27 of Ship Island, about twelve miles off the mainland, 



Mississippi's lumber cut 27 a deep harbor has many times been put to use: but 



Cooperage 27 in loading lumber, and other commodities, it was 



Veneer 27 formerly necessary to carry the cargo in small ves- 



Turpentine 28 sels from the shallow bays on the coast to Ship 



Island harbor and there trans-ship to seagoing ves- 



INTRODUCTION. sels. That was expensive and caused delay. In 



recent years, however, the United States Govern- 



The greatest length of Mississippi is 332 miles, ment has dredged a channel six miles long connect- 

 greatest width 189, and area 46,810 square miles, of ing Gulfport with Ship Island, to the great advan- 

 which 470 square miles are water. Its width along tage of the commerce of Mississippi, especially the 

 the gulf coast is eighty-five miles. lumber export trade. The deep harbor at Ship 

 The state's surface consists of swamp land, prai- Island possesses historical interest from the fact 

 rie. pml hills, but at no point is the elevation much thai t it was made headquarters for the Gulf Block- 

 above 800 feet, and a considerable portion of it is ading Squadron during the Civil War, and important 

 only a few feet above sea level. The most elevated naval and military expeditions started from that 

 region lies in the northeastern part of the state, point. 



and the lowest along the gulf coast. The central A large part of Mississippi's lumber shipments by 

 and the northeastern regions contain the prairie; water are sent from Mobile in Alabama; but the con- 

 along the Mississippi river are bluffs ranging in struction of important trunk-line railroads through 

 height up to 500 feet, but usually not so high; while the state with numerous branch lines and feeders, 

 in what is known as the Delta region is much land has placed the principal forest resources of the state 

 subject to occasional overflow when the Mississippi within reach of various and excellent markets. The 

 reaches flood stage in the early spring. The gen- Mississippi is navigable for small vessels all the 

 eral surface of the state, however, is undulating and time and for the largest much of the time, and other 



streams carry boats and rafts and supply means 

 for reaching many markets. 



The Commissioner of the Bureau of Corporations 

 reported in 1911 that privately-owned timber in 

 Mississippi, including both hard and soft woods, ag- 

 gregated 95,300,000,000 board feet. As there is lit- 

 tle timber belonging to the state or to the govern- 

 ment, the figures given represent practically the 

 whole amount. The annual cut of forest products 

 of all kinds in Mississippi indicates that the state's 

 timber supply will last about thirty years at the 

 present rate of cutting. The estimated forested area 

 is about seventy per cent of the whole, or 32,000 

 square miles. Generally, the shortleaf pine is in 

 the north, the longleaf and Cuban pine in the south, 

 the loblolly in nearly all of the state, except the 

 swampy regions, and the minor species of pine in a 

 few localities. The hardwoods are scattered in 

 nearly all regions. Red gum and cypress are most 

 abundant in the Delta region; both are of much 

 value, the cypress being a soft wood and red gum 

 hard. In the southern part, particularly in the vi- 

 cinity of the gulf coast, much of the pine has been 

 cut. From that region, however, a rather large 

 amount of cordwood and charcoal are shipped to 

 New Orleans. 



The dense stand of timber in the Delta region 

 makes it an important source of supply, and it prom- 

 ises to long continue so. Though the land possesses 

 great fertility, much of it is so wet, and such large 

 tracts are covered with water, that farming will be 

 a long time in taking possession. In 1880 it was 

 estimated that only one-sixth of the Delta was under 

 cultivation, the rest chiefly in timber. 



In 1909 Mississippi stood third among the states 

 in the production of lumber. Washington was first 

 and Louisiana second. Ten years earlier Mississippi 

 was in the tenth rank, and during that interval 

 (1899 to 1909) it increased its lumber output 113 

 per cent, or nearly a billion and a quarter feet, and 

 took the rank held in 1899 by Michigan. Louisiana 

 and Virginia are the only southern states which in- 

 creased their per cent of lumber output more than 

 Mississippi in the ten-year period between 1899 and 

 1909; and Louisiana, only, increased more in actual 

 amount. The growth of the lumber industry was 

 exceedingly slow in Mississippi for a long period 

 after the settlement of the state. The old-time plant- 

 ers devoted to growing cotton, thought little of for- 

 est resources, and what areas were cut over were 

 cleared for plantation purposes, and the logs were 

 destroyed, except a small percentage used for fenc- 

 ing and building material. The diary of a planter, 

 written about 1840 and recently published by the 

 Mississippi Historical Society, records in a monot- 

 onous series of entries extending over some years, 

 the process of clearing land. Fire was always de- 

 pended upon to do the chief work; while one or two 

 slaves are often mentioned as spending the days in 

 the clearings "mauling," and the women and chil- 

 dren in "burning." These specific instances given 

 by a single planter were doubtless typical of general 

 conditions in the state at that time and during many 

 preceding decades. The forests, which grew on the 

 best land and were of the finest types, were thought 

 of only as hindrances to be removed and destroyed. 

 Fire was, unfortunately, not confined to the clear- 

 ings. As early as 1817 William Darby, in a book 

 treating of the geography and various resources of 

 Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and Alabama 

 (which was then a territory) says that fire and the 

 tramping of domestic animals had so largely de- 

 stroyed the cane brakes that wild cane was becoming 

 rare in Mississippi. If cane was being destroyed 

 then, it is evident that much greater destruction 

 was going on among the forests outside the deep 

 wet swamps. 



Up to the Civil War the mills were small and 

 few. They devoted their rather feeble energies to 

 sawing building and fence lumber for the planta 

 tions. The lumber industry at that time was much 

 more highly developed on the Atlantic coast, in 

 Georgia and the Carolinas, though the excellent 

 timber on the eastern coast was no better than that 

 in Mississippi. Fine hewed timbers for shipment to 

 the North and export to Europe were rafted down 

 the Savannah, Altamaha. and other eastern rivers, 

 while Mississippi's splendid yellow pine was men- 

 tioned chiefly for "mauling" and "burning." In 1860, 

 according to B. M. Hilgard's "The New South," pub- 

 lished in 1887. there were 277 sawmills in Missis- 

 sippi, and only one planing mill. Doubtless much 



