3. COOSA VALLEY REGION. 6iJ 



Charcoal (less now than formerly). 



Post-oak and long-leaf pine cross-ties. 



Cooperage stock, baskets and crates. 



Furniture, wagons, freight cars. 



Handles, spokes, chair stock. 



Cedar posts and pencil-wood. 



Mine timbers. 



Tan-bark. 



Roots of sassafras and other small trees for medicinal purposes. 



All the charcoal iron furnaces in the state, four in 

 number, are located in this region, and they have been in 

 operation about forty years each, on the average. Their 

 combined annual capacity is about 80,000 tons of iron, 

 and as the making of a ton of iron requires just about 

 100 bushels of charcoal, equivalent to about 1,900 feet of 

 lumber, board measure, it is evident that an enormous 

 amount of timber (mostly pine) has been consumed in 

 this way. Some of the furnaces operate their own char- 

 coal ovens, and others get their supplies from kilns at 

 various convenient points. One of the largest charcoal 

 plants is near Attalla, and there is another large one at 

 Childersburg. 



The naval stores industry does not seem to have in- 

 vaded this region yet, unless at the extreme southwest- 

 ern end. Its coming is probably only a question of time, 

 though, for it is gradually creeping inland from the vast 

 but depleted pine forests nearer the coast to the more 

 scattered bodies of long-leaf pine among the mountains. 

 In Talladega County especially there are considerable 

 areas of this pine where it would seem profitable even 

 now to establish the industry, provided a conservative 

 method of exploitation (the Herty cup-and-gutter system 

 or some modification of it) were used. 



