20 



THE LUMBER TRADE JOURNAL 



[.January 1, 1912. 



THE USE OF WOOD IN LOUISIANA. 



Table 1. 

 SUMMARY OP KINDS OF WOOD USED IN LOUISIANA. 



KINDS OF Woou. 



Common Name 



Botanical Name 



Quantity Average 



Used Annually. cost per 



Feet B. M. Per cent. 1000 ft. 



Grown 



Longleaf pine Pinus palustris .... 



Shortleaf pine nnus ecninata 



Cypress I'axoaium distichuru 



Ked gum Liquidambar styracmua 



Cottonwood Populus aeltoides . 



Tupelo Nyssa aquatica ... 



Loblolly pine t-mus t*ua 



Black willow Salix nigra 



White oak yuercus alba 



Hickory nicoria ovata 



Texan (spoue^,i u.>.. . . ^uercus texana ... 



White ash Fraxinus amencana 



Evergreen magnolia ...iuagnolia loetiaa .. 



Yellow poplar iJriodendron tulipifera. 



Spruce pine Hnus glabra 



Basswood Tilia americana 



Engelmann spruce . . . . ficea eiigeiiuauiin 



alack gum Nyssa sylvatica , 



Cow oak yuercus michauxii 



uvercup oak yuercus lyrata 



White elm ulmus americana 



.Mahogany (Mex.) Swietenia mahogani. i 



.Mahogany (Africa) . . . Khaya senegalensis.. ) 



Cuban pine f inus cubensis 



Sweet magnolia Magnolia glauca 



Chestnut Castanea uentata 



Beech Fagus atropunicea 



ned Cedar Juniperus virginiana . . 



Sugar map'e Acer saccharum 



Wuite pine Pinus strobus 



Ked oak yuercus rubra 



Sweet birch Betula lenta 



Hiver birch iietula nigra 



Silver maple Acer saccnarinum 



Locust Kobinia pseudacacia . . 



Persimmon uiospyrus virginiana . . 



Liogwood Cornus florida 



usage orange Toxylon pomiferum . . . 



Cherry Prunus serotina 



Circassian walnut Pterocarya caucasica .. 



Catalpa Catalpa catalpa 



Umbrella tree Melia azedarach umbra- 



__,^ j culitera 



Black w'alnut .'..'. Juglans nigra 



Black spruce Picea mariana 



Red mulberry Morus rubra 



Water oak Quercus nigra 



Willow oak Quercus phellos 



Lignum vitae Guaiacum offlcinale .... 



American hollyi Ilex opacaj 



Black jack Quercus marilandica .. 



Green ash Fraxinus lanceolata . . . 



Buckthorn bumelia . . . .Bumelia lycioides 



Chittimwood Bumelia lanuginosa . . . 



Cedar elm Ulmus crassirblia 



Drummond maple Acer rubrurn drummon- 



dii 



Florida maple Acer saccharum florida- 



num 



Hackberry Celtis occidentalis 



Sugarberry Celtis mississippiensis. . 



Honey locust Gleditsia tricanthos ... 



Water locust Gleditsia aquatica 



Live oak Quercus virginiana .... 



Post oak Quercus minor 



Pecan Hicoria pecan 



Spanish oak Quercus digitata 



Sassafras Sassafras Sassafras .... 



Turkey oak Quercus cates baei 



Wing elm Ulmus alata 



Yellow oak Quercus velutina 



Bitternut hickory Hicoria minima 



Water hickory Hicoria aquatica 



Mockernut hickory Hicoria alba 



Pignut hickory Hicoria glabra 



Totals 1,354,954,101 .100.00 $11.64 $15,765,458 



*Less than 1/100 of 1 per cent. 



JThis and the woods which follow were not separately reported but were found in use. 



98.27 



1.73 



The cut of lumber in Louisiana in 1909 was 3,- 

 ."..11 ,1)18,000 feet board measure. About 2,196,000,- 

 000 feet was disposed of in the rough, and the rest 

 was further manufactured. The extent of further 

 manufacture was not the same in all cases. Some 

 of the lumber was simply planed or surfaced, and 

 in that form was sent to market; other was made 

 into boxes, furniture, finish, vehicles, boats, and 

 other commodities, and thus went, ready for use, to 

 the consumer of those commodities. The total quan- 

 tity thus manufactured was 1,354,954,101 feet, ac- 

 cording to the statistics collected during this in- 

 vestigation, costing when it reached the factories 



$15,765,458, or $11.64 per thousand feet. 



The total is made up of a large number of spe- 

 cies, 72 appearing in the list shown in Table 1; 

 but most of these supplied amounts so small that 

 they could be neglected without materially affect- 

 ing the total. Louisiana's forests grow more than 

 100 species of trees large enough to be of some com- 

 mercial use, and more than fifty of them appear 

 in the table, yet of the total quantity of wood manu- 

 factured, three species contributed 94 per cent, and 

 69 species only 6 per cent. It thus appears that. 

 judged by quantity, the manufacturers of wood 

 commodities in Louisiana depend on three woods. 



^Longleaf pine supplies 50 per cent of It, shortleaf 

 28 per cent, and cypress 16 per cent. This is not 

 the rough lumber, but such as is further manu- 

 factured. However, a ratio almost exactly the same 

 holds for the whole lumber cut in the state. Yel- 

 low pine (chiefly longleaf and shortleaf) and cy- 

 press make up 94 per cent of It. 



The manufacturers of Louisiana brought in very 

 little wood from other states and countries, only 

 15,014,102 feet, or a little over one per cent, and 

 it cost $270,304, or less than two per cent of the 

 total cost. Foot for foot, that brought from with- 

 out cost more than the home grown, the price of 

 the imported lumber being $18, and the home grown 

 $11.56. Although hard pine and cypress so greatly 

 exceed all other woods in amount and value, it 

 by no means follows that these are the only im- 

 portant timbers In the state. The forests are 

 rich in kinds, and many of the species are valua- 

 ble at present and are destined to increase in value 

 when manufacturing shall become more diversi- 

 fied than It now is in Louisiana. The softwoods 

 are rapidly going to market, but the hardwoods, 

 which are found in all parts of the state, particu- 

 larly in the northern portions, are waiting for fur- 

 ther development before their full value is appre- 

 ciated. At this place it seems proper to append a 

 list of woods now used in considerable amounts, or 

 coming Into use, and to refer briefly to the merits 

 and characteristics of some of them, purely from 

 the standpoint of usefulness. 



SOUTHERN PINES. 



Sawmill men of Louisiana, and of the South gen- 

 erally, do not distinguish between the different com- 

 mercial pines of the region as carefully as botanists 

 do. Lumbermen frequently recognize two kinds 

 of pines, the one with much heartwood and thin 

 sapwood, which is called "hard pine," "yellow pine," 

 "heart pine," or some other of many names. The 

 other kind has thick sap-wood, small heartwood, and 

 is called "sap pine," or "short-leaf," or "loblolly." 

 Division into two general classes of lumber based 

 on the thickness or thinness of the sapwood, is 

 practical, and satisfactorily answers general pur- 

 poses. But there are other differences in appear- 

 ance which are recognized. The needles of some 

 of the southern pines are long from eight inches 

 to a foot others are short. Length of leaf is often 

 made a basis for separation, particularly before 

 the trees are cut down. When logs are piled on 

 skidways, exposing their ends to view, it may fre- 

 quently be noticed that the annual rings of the 

 wood are broad and easily distinguished in some, 

 but narrow, and, for that reason, somewhat obscure 

 in others. At the same time it may be observed 

 that generally, but not always, the logs with thick 

 sapwood have broad rings, while the narrow-ringed 

 logs have thin sapwood and much heartwood. The 

 same characteristics may be noted in sawed timbers 

 of large dimensions. If the trees are observed in 

 the woods, and the logs afterwards examined, it 

 will be found, as a rule, that the pine with long 

 needles produces the log with thin sapwood and 

 narrow annual rings; and, conversely, the logs with 

 broad rings and thick sapwood were cut from trees 

 with short needles. If the logs are followed through 

 the sawmill to the lumber yard, it will usually be 

 found that what is then called "hard pine," "yel- 

 low pine," "heart pine," etc., was cut from the 

 long-needled tree; and the "sap pine," "loblolly," 

 and "shortleaf" lumber will come from the tree 

 with short needles. 



Among Louisiana mill men, any other names for 

 standing pines than "long leaf" and "short leaf" 

 are rather unusual. These terms fitly describe the 

 trees as they stand, 'but botanists go farther than 

 that, and lumbermen will also when the pines be- 

 come scarcer and the uses for which each one is 

 best fitted are more carefully considered. Instead 

 of two pines, "longleaf" and "short leaf," there are 

 four, and counting two scarce ones, there are six 

 in Louisiana. The four which are pretty abun- 

 dant are longleaf (that is its true name), Cuban, 

 loblolly, and shortleaf (that is also its true name). 

 The last three named have short needles, and they 

 are often considered by lumbermen as a single 

 species which is given the common name short 

 leaf. These four trees are common in Louisiana. 

 If all four are considered, they are probably more 

 generally distributed there than in any other state. 

 In North Carolina and Virginia the loblolly pre- 

 vails; in Florida the Cuban pine is common; in 

 Southwestern Arkansas and Northeastern Texas, 

 shortleaf prevails; but they have all made Louisi- 

 ana a common home not necessarily mingled to- 

 gether, but growing somewhere in the state. 



Longleaf Pine. 



i 



The needles are longer than those of any other 

 southern pine; the wood is heavier than any other, 

 except Cuban pine, and is surpassed in stiffness only 

 by Cuban pine. The sapwood is thin, the annual 



