66 



FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



Chestnut. — Chestnut furnishes nearly half of the wood used for pulp 

 by this factory. By the process invented a few years ago by Omar 

 Carr, the Champion Fiber Company now manufactures into pulp the 

 wood from which they first extract the tannic acid. The wood is 

 bought in the open market, coming chiefly from points along the Mur- 

 phy branch of the Southern Railway on which this plant is situated. 



Table 5 gives the approximate amount of pulp wood cut in 1909, 

 exclusive of chestnut, which is included in table 4, by kinds and counties. 

 As with chestnut extract wood, only those counties that have railroad 

 facilities market this material. 



Table 5. — Output of Pulpwood in 1909, in Cokds of 160 Cubic Feet, by Classes and Counties. 



Counties 



Poplar 



and 



Basswood 



Pine 



Hemlock 



Spruce 



and 

 Balsam 



Total 





Cords 



Cords 



Cords 



Cords 



Cords 





1,000 



100 



750 





1,850 



Clay 









10 



540 



150 



1,948 



2,860 



4,000 



1,350 



250 



20 





75 



1,503 



229 



5,438 



16,990 



20 





85 











2,043 









379 





1,141 



6,000 

 16, 240 



14, 527 





36,090 





380 

 150 

 315 

 110 



4,400 







1,500 









1,065 





630 





760 









Mitchell . 



200 









200 















































Totals. 



12,328 



2,696 



25, 635 



22, 240 



62, 899 







*A large part of the chestnut tanning extract wood is also manufactured into pulp. 



The five foot sticks into which the wood is cut are first sawed into 

 20-inch lengths, for convenience in handling. The bark, with any 

 dark or decaying wood, is then chipped off by the "barkers" ; this bark, 

 along with that taken from the hemlock, is then carried to the vats, in 

 which it is boiled for the extraction of tannic acid. After this is ex- 

 tracted the refuse is taken to the engine house, and used as fuel. The 

 trimmed sticks of chestnut are cut into small pieces by the "chipper," 

 and after the tannin has been extracted the chips are screened to get rid 

 of dark knots or other pieces that would injure the paper, and reduced 

 to pulp by the soda process. 



Spruce. — Practically all of the spruce, which includes from 20 to 30 

 per cent balsam, is cut by the company itself from the mountains of 

 Haywood and Jackson counties where the Champion Fiber Company 

 controls thousands of acres of spruce timber. Logging is done in much 

 the same way as for the production of lumber, though the altitude at 



