92 The Forest Products Laboratory 



made arrangements with the owner, paying, as a rule, $2.00 per tree, 

 to cut any tree in the forest that was over 30 inches in diameter — I may 

 say any white oak tree. They cut it, and cut off tlie first bolt. If it 

 did not split perfectly straight, they went away and left the tree to rot 

 in the forest. By that system no doubt billions of feet of splendid 

 white oak were left to waste in the woods. Every sawmill today util- 

 izes the tree up to the point where the large limbs appear, or as far 

 into the top as you can possibly use it to make a board of any kind. 

 Now, they took out of the forests of the South the most beautiful, the 

 best, clear white oak, which today would be worth countless millions 

 of dollars, and which they sold for $2.00 a tree. I don't know what 

 one would have to pay today if one went out to buy it. 



Gum as far back as 1900 had practically no value. I started a 

 sawmill in the Yazoo Delta in 1892. I sawed enough so-called red 

 gum to build our plant and our tramways, and I sawed possibly 

 100,000 feet more than we actually needed. I though I could sell it. 

 I could not give it away. Finally I sold it to the planters for $1.00 a 

 load to get it out of the yard. The same may be said of white ash. 

 There was a splendid growth of what was commonly known as cane 

 ash. It was slaughtered for one purpose or another and was sold or 

 practically given away. It was used largely for mechanical purposes 

 and would ]}e a valuable timber if we had it today. 



The history of hickory is rather interesting to the lumberman. 

 I remember when southern hickory with the wide, broad, redheart, or 

 what we lumbermen used to call shellbark hickory, had no value at all. 

 Everj^body wanted what was called second growtli hickory from 

 Indiana and Ohio. About 1900, people's notions changed in that re- 

 gard, because the supply of hickory was about exhausted. They be- 

 gan to saw and use shellbark hickory; and about this time I imagine 

 the market was glad to take even that kind of hickory. 



The poplar tree had the same history. As long as poplar was 

 available you could not sell cottonwood at any price. I recall when 

 so-called boxboards sold for $12 per thousand f. o. b. Memphis. 

 Standing cottonwood was worth 60 cents a thousand. The supply is 

 exhausted. Cottonwood has gone, and now they have come to gum; 

 and it is truly unfortunate that so many countless billion feet of gum, 

 that beautiful, splendid tree, have gone to waste before we began to 

 appreciate its value. The planters of the South destroyed it. They 



