adjacent to the agricultural belt that bisects the 

 area from north to south; the cooperage plants are 

 scattered throughout (fig. 5). According to the 

 1931-32 Census of Crops and Manufactures of the 

 State Department of Agriculture, the average 

 number of wage earners employed by the wood- 

 products industries was 7,051, with wages of 

 $3,183,605 for the year. Although the lumber in- 

 dustry in general is very important, the cypress 

 portion is of particular significance, for Florida 

 ranks first in production of cypress and contains 

 most of the remaining cypress saw timber in the 

 United States. 



LUMBER 



Eight large sawmills with a daily capacity of 

 over 40 M board feet each were active in 1934 in 

 northeastern Florida (table 21), but three of these 

 expect to cut out before 1944. The original log- 

 ging operations were often of a selective nature, 

 and smaller mills have moved into the partly cut 

 old-growth stands to utilize the remaining timber. 

 Attracted principally by second growth of saw- 

 timber size were 126 small mills with an average 

 daily production capacity of less than 20 M board 

 feet each and 16 with a capacity of 20 to 39 M 

 board feet. In 1936, the number of mills under 

 20 M board feet daily capacity increased more 

 than 20 percent; there was no change in the other 

 classes of mills. The lumber cut in 1934 was 

 204,600 M board feet lumber tally (table 22), 

 almost 60 percent of which was pine. The logging 

 and manufacture of this lumber required more 

 than 700,000 man-days of labor. 



Table 21. — Number of sawmills, classified according to species cut 

 and capacity, 1934 



Daily (10-hour) capacity 

 (M board feet) 



Pine 



Hard- 

 wood 



Cypress 



Mixed ' 



All spe- 

 cies 



Under 10 



41 



49 



6 



2 



2 



2 

 1 





9 



19 



5 



52 



10 to 19— 



6 

 3 

 3 



74 



20 to 39 



16 



40 and over 



8 



All mills 



98 



5 



12 



35 



150 



1 Mills cutting less than 80 percent of any 1 of the species groups listed 

 are classed as mixed mills. 



VENEER 



Altogether 13 rotary veneer plants, producing 

 box stock, crate headings, and hamper bottoms, 

 used during 1934 the equivalent of more than 36 



million board feet (lumber tally), which was nearly 

 equally divided between pine and hardwoods; 

 practically no cypress was used. These plants were 

 operating at about 60 percent of capacity in 1934. 

 Half of the companies own timber but, like the 

 others, also buy logs. A large part of the produc- 

 tion is consumed in Georgia and Florida; there is a 

 small export to Cuba. Some 2,400 people are em- 

 ployed for all or part of an 8- to 10-month season 

 and in 1934 worked a total of more than 270,000 

 man-days in the woods and in the veneer and as- 

 sembly plants. Six package plants to the south use 

 veneer logs, largely hardwood, from as far north as 

 Alachua, Clay, and St. Johns Counties. Because 

 of the requirements of the citrus and truck crops for 

 containers, this industry is of particular local 

 significance. 



COOPERAGE 



There are nine slack-cooperage plants, two 

 making cooperage for produce barrels, five for 

 rosin barrels, and two for both products. Produce 

 barrels, which are principally used for potatoes 

 and fish, are made in the southeast section. Most 

 of the rosin-cooperage plants are closely associated 

 with the gum naval stores industry in the north 

 and central portions of the survey unit. These 

 plants use material of small size, most of them 

 taking bolts to a 6-inch minimum diameter. In 

 1934 the slack-barrel plants operated at about 65 

 percent capacity and the rosin-barrel plants at 

 around 55 percent. Together they employed 620 

 persons during all or part of 6 to 10 months (55,000 

 man-days) and used more than 25,000 cords of 

 wood, nearly 90 percent of which was pine. 



PIECE PRODUCTS 



In addition, a large volume of material is utilized 

 by the piece-products industries. Almost 2 million 

 cross ties were produced in 1934, 56 percent from 

 cypress, 41 percent from pine, and the remainder 

 principally from gum. Nearly 40,000 pine and 

 5,000 cypress poles and piles were also produced. 

 Those produced from pine are marketed at creo- 

 soting plants, from which they are distributed to 

 consumers. The production of cross ties, poles, 

 and piles required 285,000 man-days of labor in 

 the woods. 



35 



