January 1, 1912.] 



THE LUMBER TRADE JOURNAL 



23 



Ouachita' Parishes, and also in many other parts 

 of the state. Perhaps no other hardwood in Louisi- 

 ana promises as much for the future as willow oak. 

 It grows rapidly, assumes good shape of trunk in 

 forest situations, and has many good qualities. The 

 court house square at Monroe, La., contains a num- 

 ber of planted trees of this species. Two were 

 sawed down in the spring of 1911. Annual rings 

 showed them to be 55 years old, sound, and free 

 from shake. At 3 1-2 feet from the ground one 

 was 42 inches in diameter, the other 49 inches. 

 During the first thirty-five years these trees grew 

 from two-thirds of an inch to one and three-fourths 

 of an inch In diameter per year. The sapwood of 

 each was about three inches thick. The general 

 appearance of the heartwood resembled that of 

 northern red oak. The logs cut from the trees 

 scaled 1300 feet, board measure, for the smaller, 

 and 1700 for the larger, representing a growth of 

 lumber of about 28 and 31 feet per year respec- 

 tively. It is evident that a woodlot of such trees, 

 planted and cared for under forestry methods, 

 would produce lumber in large amounts. When 

 the time comes for the people of Louisiana to plant 

 forests, the willow oak will doubtless merit a promi- 

 nent place in wood supply. The stumps, and part 

 of the trunks, of two other willow oaks In a va- 

 cant square in Monroe were still larger. One was 

 60 and the other 61 inches in diameter, breast high, 

 the age of one having been 69 and the other 70 

 years, as shown by the rings. Calculations based 

 on the stumps and the portions of the trunks re- 

 maining on the ground indicated that one tree 

 contained 3450 and the other 3555 feet of lumber. 

 During their growing periods one laid on approxi- 

 mately 49 and the other 51 feet, board measure, of 

 wood a year. 



It is remarkable how different are the opinions 

 expressed of the value of willow oak for manufac- 

 turing purposes. It Is praised and condemned. 

 Those loudest in its condemnation base their ob- 

 jection upon the difficulties encountered in season- 

 ing the wood. Others complain of no such diffi- 

 culty. In some instances men disparage willow 

 oak when they have in mind water oak (Quercus 

 nigra), a tree baring some resemblance, but of 

 a different species. Even water oak, upon better 

 acquaintance, will probably be found much better 

 than its present reputation. Tupelo was once con- 

 sidered a nuisance, but it is now valuable. Ono 

 by one the rejected woods are coming into favor, 

 as men learn how to handle them, and find out 

 what they are good for. Willow oak is coming 

 into its own in Louisiana now, and water oak 

 will follow at no distant day, for the small matter 

 of seasoning a wood cannot long keep it out of use. 

 Since these two oaks seem to promise much in the 

 future, particular care was had to inquire into their 

 uses in different localities, while prosecuting the field 

 work connected with this investigation. An exami- 

 nation of the list of uses for various woods, begin- 

 ning on page 30 of this report, will show that Wil- 

 low oak and water oak compare favorably with 

 most other species. 



UNREPORTED WOODS. 



An inspection of Table 1 will show that several 

 of the woods listed are accompanied by no figures 

 giving the feet used annually. That is because no 

 manufacturer listed those woods. As far as re- 

 ports sent in by the makers of furniture, finish, 

 boats, vehicles, and other commodities are con- 

 cerned, the list of woods in the table might have 

 ended with lignum-vitae. That wood in the table, 

 however, is followed by twenty-four others. Some 

 of these have been mentioned in the foregoing 

 discussion, where they were included under the 

 names of others, as the elms, hickories, and ma- 

 ples, and the reason for including others, though 

 not mentioned by any manufacturer, will now be 

 given. 



During the progress of the field work in Louis- 

 iana, many parts of the state were visited, and it 

 was discovered that several woods were being cut 

 in the forests, sent to saw mills, cut into lumber, 

 and at that stage they disappeared from view. If 

 this lumber were used in the rough as in con- 

 struction of buildings, fences, and the like, and was 

 not further manufactured this investigation was 

 done with it; for it took into account such lumber 

 only as passed through further stages of manufac- 

 ture. Careful inquiry developed the fact that much 

 of the lumber which, under its own name, had 

 dropped out of sight after it left the saws, was 

 being shipped to factories under other names, or 

 by no names at all. In addition to this, a few 

 woods were used in a small way locally, perhaps 

 not passing through a manufacturing plant. 



American Holly. 



A small holly tree is occasionally cut in Louis- 

 iana, and goes to the brush makers, or is converted 

 into small articles, such as surveying instruments, 

 or small boxes for handkerchiefs and collars. 



Black Jack. 



This oak is always rather small and generally 

 of poor quality. It is abundant in Louisiana, and 

 the wood serves as repair material for heavy 

 wagons, and sometimes goes into new vehicles. 

 Chair makers buy it, and a little is made into 

 other furniture. It seems to be more in favor in 

 Grand and Rapides Parishes than elsewhere in 

 the state, and it is not unusual to see black jack 

 logs on skidways, trucks, and at mills in that re- 

 gion. Logs above eighteen inches in diameter are 

 uncommon. 



Chittimwood, 



and its near relative, Buckthorn Bumelia or Southern 

 buckthorn, are used for crosscut saw handles, 

 small cabinet work, sometimes for box lumber, 

 and fence posts. Only occasionally are these 

 woods large enough for saw timber. 



Honey Locust and Water Locust. 



These two thorny trees, the latter generally 

 smaller than the first, are nearly always consid- 

 ered to be one and the same in Louisiana, where 

 their common name is "thorntree." In the Red 

 River Valley, sawlogs two feet in diameter are 

 sometimes seen, but that size is unusual. The 

 lumber is rough, coarse, and is little thought of. 

 Some of it goes to furniture factories, but may be 

 employed as crating material only. Carpenters 

 lay it for subfloors the rough floor which is to be 

 covered with some better wood. The trees are so 

 little valued that unless quite convenient, they 

 may be passed t>y in logging operations. 



Live Oak. 



This tree is abundant in the flat, coast regions 

 of Louisiana, and is found in all parts of the state. 



It was once valuable as ship timber, but it is now 

 one of the most neglected woods in this country. 

 The unshapely trees are unsuitable for saw logs. 

 A little of it goes to vehicle factories, but no other 

 use, except fuel, could be found for it in Louisiana. 



Pecan. 



This tree is "pecan" where it grows for orna- 

 ment and bears nuts, but when it is cut and goes 

 to the vehicle factory it becomes "hickory." It is 

 not regarded as the equal of the other hickories to 

 which it is related, and that is perhaps the reason 

 why those who use it do not list it by its true 

 name. 



Spanish Oak, Turkey Oak and Yellow Oak 



are regularly cut by the hardwood mills in the 

 northern parts of Louisiana, and the operators oc- 

 casionally recognize them; but when the lumber 

 goes to the furniture factory and vehicle shop it 

 is called either red oak or white oak. 



Sassafras. 



Though sassafras is seldom mistaken for any 

 other wood, it was not reported by any manufac- 

 turer in the state. Some of it is cut, however, in 

 the northern parishes, and one of its uses is for 

 flooring. Cabinet makers buy it and make ward- 

 robes and clothes chests of it. It is highly es- 

 teemed along the rivers of northern Louisiana for 

 dugout canoes, being light, long-lasting, and not 

 liable to split or check by action of the weather. 

 The sassafras trees of Louisiana are generally too 

 small for canoes, for the species there approaches 

 the southern limit of its range. Rivermen in need 

 of dugouts watch the streams that flow from Ar- 

 kansas, and gaff choice sassafras logs as they 

 float down on floods, and these supply their wants. 



PLANING MILL PRODUCTS. 



Table 2. 

 PLANING MILL PRODUCTS. 



Av. cost 



Quantity per 1000 

 used annually feet at 

 Species (Ft. B.M.) factory. 



Longleaf pine 644,321,266 $10.50 



Shortleaf pine 377,476,618 10.50 



Cypress 184,210,000 16.21 



Loblolly pine 7,500,000 12.00 



Tupelo 5,000,000 



White oak 3,635,000 15.95 



Texan oak 1,063,000 24.99 



Grown Outside La. 

 Av. cost 

 per 1,000 



Quantity feet at 

 (Ft. B.M.) factory. 

 2,800,000 $12.86 

 3,000,000 9.00 



Totals 1,223,205,884 $11.39 $13,932,586 1,217,405,884 $11.40 5,800,000 $10.86 



Nearly all manufacturers of wood products use 

 machines of some sort to dress lumber and to that 

 extent most of the output of such factories might 

 be classed as the product of planing mills. The 

 accompanying table (No. 2), however, does not in- 

 clude so much. What appears in this table does 

 not appear in other tables of this report, except 

 that there may be slight and unavoidable duplica- 

 tion in a few particulars, for it is impossible to 

 trace all lumber from the sawmill to the last manu- 

 facturer who handles it before it becomes a fin- 

 ished product. The manner in which the statistics 

 for this report were collected and compiled made 

 it possible to so check and cross-check the items 

 that few, if any, of them appear in more than one 

 table, and there is, therefore, practically no 

 duplication. 



A considerable part of Table 2 consists of floor- 

 ing, siding, car roofing and siding, fencing, and 

 heavy timbers, but it was not found practicable 

 to separate these items into classes, to make a 

 table (or industry) of each class. Many of the 

 large mills in Louisiana plane boards, planks, and 

 dimension stocks simply to lessen the weight and 

 reduce freight charges on long hauls. Items of 

 this kind figure prominently in the table. Timbers 

 of large size, for bridges, trestles, and large build- 

 ings, are occasionally surfaced by the mill that 

 saws them. This item appears also in the table. 



Louisiana supplies practically all of the wood 

 listed in table 2. A little longleaf pine came from 

 Mississippi and some short leaf pine from Texas, 

 and none from elsewhere. A large part of the ma- 

 terial reaches the mill as logs. The bulk of the 

 output is from large mills which do their own log- 

 ging. The low average price of the lumber is due 

 to that fact, and the price is made up.chiefly, of 

 slumpage, cost of logging, the cost of sawing, and 

 the handling at the mill up to the time it reaches 

 the planer. Some of the mills in giving the cost of 

 the rough lumber when it reaches the planer omit 

 the item of "depreciation of plant." That is as 

 much a charge against the lumber as any other 



item is. for a plant, costing perhaps one hundred 

 thousand dollars, will wear out, and if the work is 

 to continue the plant must be replaced, and at any 

 event, the cost of the plant constitutes part of the 

 cost of the lumber sawed. With this explanation, 

 it will be apparent that the average costs in the 

 table are a little too low, though the difference is 

 very small in most cases. 



The market for the planing mill products of 

 Louisiana is both domestic and foreign. Shipments 

 go regularly to all parts of the United States. The 

 foreign demand is large and in many countries. 

 Canada and Mexico are important buyers, and 

 nearly every seaport and many interior cities of 

 the W r est Indies, Central America, and South 

 America draw supplies of this material through 

 New Orleans, and other ports on or near the Gulf 

 of Mexico. Large quantities go to England and 

 Scotland, to Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, and 

 Spain. In northern and western Europe the hard 

 pine of Louisiana competes with the pine from the 

 Baltic Provinces which once nearly monopolized 

 the European markets. The southern pines have 

 been able to gain and hold a considerable part of 

 that market. South Africa is a large buyer of 

 pine from the Gulf region. 



Table 3 compares the planing mill output of 

 Louisiana with certain other states. In order to 

 make the basis for comparison the same for the 

 several states, tables 2 and 6 for Louisiana are 

 combined, because the figures for the other states 

 represent a combination of similar products. 



Table 3. 



Planing Mill Products of Louisiana Compared with 

 Certain Other States. 



Quantity used Average cost No. of 



States. annually per 1000 feet woods 



Feet B. M. at factory. used. 



Louisiana 1.259,775,551 $11.52 15 



North Carolina.. 368,016,000 12.59 14 



Wisconsin 174,185,000 30.19 25 



Maryland 81,356,000 27.46 23 



