13. SOUTHWESTERN PINE HILLS. 121 



day, and 12 other wood-working establishments. Over 

 one-third of the mills have tram-roads, averaging about 

 20 miles in length, and making in all 424 miles of log- 

 ging railroad, which is about as much as in all the rest of 

 the state combined, and averages about one mile to every 

 12 square miles. The largest mill in the state, with a 

 capacity of 275,000 feet of lumber a day, is located at 

 Lockhart, Covington County, and there are four or five 

 others which can cut as much as 100,000 feet a day, and 

 at least 20 that cut as much as 50,000. Nearly all the 

 mills cut long-leaf pine, and many cut little else, except 

 that they probably take slash pine wherever they can get 

 it, without reporting it separately. Twenty-eight of 

 them cut "short-leaf pine" (which may include some 

 Pin us EUiotfii, too), 11 cypress (probably of both spe- 

 cies), 4 juniper, 3 white oak, 3 red oak, 14 poplar, and 4 

 sweet gum. 



Most of the mills are of the "big mill" type, with an 

 endless chain arrangement for carrying slabs out to one 

 side and dropping them into a fire, and many of them 

 have artificial ponds into which the logs are dumped 

 from the cars and allowed to float there until the mill is 

 ready for them. This custom of soaking the logs in 

 water for a few days or weeks before sawing seems to 

 be much less prevalent east of Alabama than westward. 

 Likewise the former practice of digging small canals for 

 long distances, lining them with boards, and turning 

 enough water into them to float logs to the mill, a 

 method which has now been almost entirely superseded 

 by the tram-road. The methods of transporting logs 

 from the stump to the tram-road or stream or artificial 

 waterway also vary considerably from one place to an- 

 other. The enormous two-wheeled log-cart, which can 

 ride right over small logs without much difl'iculty, is per- 

 haps the commonest device for this purpose, but in some 

 places, especially westward, carts with four, six or eight 

 small wheels are now preferred. Steam skidders are used 

 to a limited extent, more for swamp timber than for pine, 

 however. 



Naval stores are produced from the long-leaf and slash 

 pines at numerous turpentine stills, all of v/hich look very 



