New Orleans, La., March 15, 1912.1 



THE LUMBER TRADE JOURNAL 



22 



ber. There rings are occasionally three-fourths of 

 an inch wide, though usually much narrower. So 

 vigorously does the willow oak increase in size that 

 a man might live to cut large saw-logs from trees 

 he had planted in his youth. 



Black Jack (Quercus marilandica) and Blue Jack 

 (Quercus brevifolia). 



These two species are well established among 

 the Mississippi oaks, the latter in the southern part, 

 and the former in all parts where the soil is suit- 

 able; but they are more frequently looked upon as 

 weed trees than as resources with which to aug- 

 ment the state's wealth. They are >seldom found 

 large enough for saw-logs, and the grain of the wood 

 is flgureless and dull. In point of usefulness they 

 are doubtless lowest in the scale of all the oaks of 

 Mississippi, yet there are a few places which they 

 fill very well. Though neither is large, the black 

 jack is the larger and more abundant. Its exceed- 

 ingly rough bark, and its broad, round-cornered fan- 

 shaped leaves, 'modeled somewhat after a pear, usu- 

 ally are sufficient to identify this tree wherever 

 seen. 



The Hickories. 



It is not unusual for persons to speak of hickory 

 as though there were only one kind. Timbermen 

 are aware of the fact that the trees are not all the 

 same, and sometimes the differences are duly con- 

 sidered; but sawmills which cut hickory seldom list 

 more than one kind of species. Yet there is more 

 apparent difference between species of hickory than 

 between some of the species of oak. Mississippi 

 has seven kinds of hickory in its forests, if pecan is 

 counted as one, and yet it has no forest of hickory, 

 for it never produces pure forests, tout the trees are 

 scattered singly among other species, a few occa- 

 sionally standing near together. Operators who 

 make a 'business of logging hickory must pick out 

 the trees where they are found here and there. In 

 favorable regions the stand of hickory seldom aver- 

 ages more than 200 feet per acre. Following are the 

 species of hickory native to Mississippi. 



Pecan (Hicoria pecan). 



Pecan is usually considered the least valuable of 

 the hickories where strength, elasticity, and tough- 

 ness are essential. It gives satisfactory service only 

 where it is not required to sustain great loads or 

 stand sudden twists and strains. 



Bitternut Hickory (Hicoria minima) and Pignut 

 (Hicoria glabra). 



These two hickories are pretty generally recog- 

 nized as distinct from the hickories whose nuts are 

 edible. The wood is high class for handles and 

 parts of small vehicles. 



Nutmeg Hickory (Hicoria myristicaeformis). 



'Nutmeg hickory is rather scarce, and next to pe- 

 can is probably of less importance as a forest pro- 

 duct in Mississippi than any other of the seven 

 species. 



Water Hickory (Hicoria aquatica). 



Water hickory reaches its best development in 

 western Mississippi and the neighboring regions of 

 Louisiana and Arkansas. As its name indicates, it 

 is a water tree and flourishes on ground subject to 

 frequent overflow. 



Mockernut Hickory (Hicoria alba). 



The powerful and pleasant resinous odor of the 

 leaves of this species assists in its identification. 

 The tree is not usually large, but the wood is of ex- 

 cellent quality. 



Shagbark Hickory (Hicoria ovata). 



Probably most persons have this tree in mind 

 when they speak of hickory, and its fruit is the 

 common hickory nut of commerce. The wood is of 

 the highest class. 



The sapwood of hickory is usually considered su- 

 perior to the heartwood. The sap is white, the 

 heart red or dark. Tests have shown, however, that 

 for certain purposes the red wood serves as well as 

 the white. 



The Gums. 



Three gum trees in Mississippi contribute to the 

 lumber supply, but one of them is of rather small 

 importance. It is the black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), 

 and should not be confused with tupelo which is 

 sometimes also called 'black gum. The true black 

 gum is quite a different tree and stands alone among 

 American trees because of its remarkably inter- 

 locked fibers which render the wood almost un- 

 wedgeaible, except when frozen, in which state the 

 fibers break across and seem to split. The black 

 gum is less a swamp tree than the tupelo; its fruit 

 which is dark 'blue, is about half an inch long, while 

 tupelo's is dark purple, and is at least twice as 



large. When black gum lumber goes to market it 

 prdbably never carries its true name with it; hut 

 tupelo keeps its name, except when it passes as bay 

 or bay poplar. It grows like cypress on ground 

 flooded 'much of the year. 



Red Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua). 



This species bears some general resemiblance to 

 the others, -but it stands on its own merits, al- 

 though it often loses its identity in factories and 

 passes for Circassian walnut, cherry, birch, or oak. 

 The claim was made nearly a century ago that the 

 largest body of red gum timber in the world was in 

 the Yazoo delta in Mississippi. At that time the 

 timiber was made way with in the usual manner 

 the ax and fire. The land was so valuable that the 

 timber was considered an incumbrance. The long- 

 staple cotton grown there attracted attention in 

 most parts of the world where cotton was an article 

 of trade, and every planter who could clear more of 

 the extraordinary soil for cotton did so. Though 

 much red gum was sacrificed, a large quantity was 

 spared and has become an important source of 

 wealth. Some lumbermen specify two kinds of red 

 gum, the heart and the sap. It is all the same tree, 

 but the wood appears different some of it white, 

 other red. The sapwood of a gum, as in trees of 

 other kinds, gradually turns dark and changes to 

 heart as the trunk grows older. Some red gums 

 change from sap to heart much more rapidly than 

 others; and sometimes a large trunk is nearly all 

 sap. The "sap" gum of commerce is cut from such 

 trees. If the same tree is permitted to stand half 

 a century longer it is not improbable that most of 

 the sapwood will become heart. 



Red gum is more used for veneer than any other 

 American wood, and much of it is rotary cut from 

 what is known as sap gum logs. If the material is 

 selected for its figure, sap veneer closely resembles 

 Circassian walnut, and some of it is made into fine 

 furniture and interior finish, musical instruments, 

 sewing-machine tables, and other articles where 

 beauty of the wood is essential. The seasoning of 

 red gum stood for a long time in its way, but better 

 methods are now employed and early troubles are 

 being forgotten. 



The Elms. 



Four elms constitute a group in Mississippi, and 

 in the lumber business little effort is made to dis- 

 tinguish one species from another. They are known 

 by various names, and not infrequently the same 

 name does service in pointing out different species. 

 The name "rock elm" is given in one locality to one 

 species, in another region it is applied to another. 

 This is true in other states than Mississippi, where 

 the term "rock elm" is applied without regard to 

 any particular species. 



The most important elm in Mississippi, and like- 

 wise the most important in nearly all parts of the 

 United States where elm grows, is the common 

 white elm (Ulmus americana). The tree assumes 

 appearances somewhat different, depending upon 

 the soil where it grows, but it is usually an easy 

 matter to distinguish it from other trees of the 

 same genus associated with it. 



Slippery Elm (Ulmus pubescens). 



This tree is not often mistaken for any other, be- 

 cause the mucilaginous inner bark furnishes a ready 

 means of identification. No other elm possesses 

 this peculiar bark. Slippery elm is frequently call- 

 ed red elm, but the name is no guide to identifica- 

 tion, because two other elms in Mississippi are often 

 called by that name. 



Cedar Elm (Ulmus crassifolia). 



This elm is not abundant, but is occasionally 

 found in lumber yards. It grows on Sunflower river 

 and at other points in the state. The small twigs 

 may or may not be equipped with flat, corky brown 

 wings, one on either side, and about a quarter of 

 an inch wide. 



Wing Elm (Ulmus alata). 



That which occasionally occurs In the cedar elm, 

 wings on the twigs, is a characteristic of this spe- 

 cies, and the wings are much broader. It is usually 

 not difficult to identify this elm by its winged twigs, 

 though certain other characteristics should be taken 

 into consideration. It thrives best on gravelly soil. 



Other Woods. 



It is not the purpose to give in this place a list 

 of all the woods which may become of commercial 

 importance in Mississippi. On preceding pagee 

 groups are presented of several species which are 

 often spoken of as if they were a single one, or only 

 two or three species. On page 75 of this report will 

 be found a list of all woods reported in use by man- 

 ufacturers in Mississippi. Doubtless many others 

 are in use but were not reported in a way to bring 

 them into this report. 



INDUSTRIES. 



Manufacturers in Mississippi consume yearly 

 about 618 million feet of wood, consisting of twenty- 

 five species which are shown in Table I, following. 

 It is worthy of remark that not one foot of foreign 

 wood is reported used in Mississippi. The Forest 

 Service has already carried out studies of wood 

 uses in nearly half of the States, and in no other 

 than Mississippi are foreign woods absulutely lack- 

 ing. Every other State thus far investigated uses 

 mahogany at least, and some of them have lists of 

 a dozeni or more foreign woods employed in manu- 

 facturing. It is, therefore, remarkable that Missis- 

 sippi, which demand more wood than is demanded 

 by North Carolina, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, 

 Missouri, or Washington, should import no foreign 

 wood. The State depends almost wholly upon its 

 own forests to supply its manufacturers, for it draws 

 very little from neighboring States, though regions 

 abounding in forest whealth lie on every side. Of 

 the twenty-five woods reported by the manufac- 

 turers, white pine is the only one which is not 

 native to the State, and only ten thousand feet of 

 that was brought in. Less than one per cent of all 

 the wood came from the outside, while twelve spec- 

 ies were entirely supplied from within, and only 

 four from other States. 



It is of interest to note what proportion of the 

 wood further manufactured in Mississippi was pine. 

 The five pines which supplied it made up eighty- 

 nine per cent of the whole, and twenty other woods, 

 nineteen of them being hardwoods, furnished eleven 

 per cent. It is evident that Mississippi is yet a pine 

 State, not only in the output of its sawmills but 

 also in the demands of its manufacturers who use 

 wood. Nine industries are recognized. Table I 

 which follows is intended to show at a glance the 

 woods demanded, the quantity of each, the average 

 price of each, the proportion grown in the State, 

 and that which came in from elesewhere. The 

 other 'babies which follow show one industry each 

 and give details necessary to proper understand- 

 ing of the relative rank of the industries in the 

 State. The average cost of the wood used, as shown 

 in Table I, makes it apparent that cheap material 

 lies at the hand of the manufacturer in the State. 

 An average of only $12.22 per thousand for all kinds 

 of woods is shown. 



THE USE OF WOOD IN MISSISSIPPI. 



Table 1. 

 SUMMARY OP KINDS OP WOOD USED IN MISSISSIPPI. 



