Wood-Products Industries and Drain 



Table 22. 



-Production and employment in the wood-products 

 industries, 1936 



The industries producing lumber and other wood 

 products have been an important factor in the 

 development of Georgia since the close of the 

 eighteenth century. At first they were confined 

 to the main rivers and along the coast, helping to 

 develop such ports as Savannah, Brunswick, and 

 Darien; squared pine and cypress timbers for 

 export and live oak for ship timbers were the prin- 

 cipal products. With the introduction of more 

 modern transportation facilities and equipment, 

 lumber production in the State expanded from a 

 comparatively unimportant cut by relatively few 

 small water-powered and steam sawmills in 1820 

 to 1.3 billion board feet in 1899. A peak of approx- 

 imately 1.4 billion board feet was reached in 1925 

 and again in 1929. The lowest recorded pro- 

 duction for the State in the present century was 

 during the depression year of 1932, when only 264 

 million board feet was reported. 



To meet the needs of the developing railroads, the 

 cross-tie industry flourished and became an im- 

 portant factor in forest utilization. Similarly the 

 growth of the naval stores, fruit, and vegetable 

 industries stimulated the manufacture of barrels, 

 crates, hampers, boxes, and other containers. 



In 1936 the board-foot drain occasioned by the 

 various wood-products industries in south Georgia 

 amounted to 707 million feet, which caused a 

 total drain, including incidental waste, of nearly 

 149 million cubic feet. Almost 4 million man- 

 days of employment (the equivalent of approxi- 

 mately 26,000 men working 150 days each) were 

 furnished by these industries. The large number of 

 plants (fig. 27) dependent upon the forest resources 

 indicates the importance of, and vital need for, 

 those better forest practices that not only will 

 increase the productive capacity but also will insure 

 the economic stability of this area. 



Lumber 



Lumber production in south Georgia increased 

 from approximately 228 million board feet in 1934 

 to almost 277 million feet in 1935. By 1936 the 

 cut had increased another 50 million feet (table 22); 

 82 percent of the total cut was pine, 12 percent 

 hardwood, and 6 percent cypress. 



During 1936, of 343 sawmills in south Georgia, 



Industry and use 



Units pro- 

 duced or 

 used 



Man-days (10 hours) of 

 employment 



In the 

 woods 



At the 

 plant 



Total 



I.nmher 



M board 



feet 

 1 328, 500 

 1 38, 600 

 Cords 

 43, 300 

 3 1, 761, 400 

 34, 300 

 Pieces 

 1, 465, 000 

 173, 000 

 8 4, 084, 000 

 («) 



Thou- 

 sands 

 419 

 73 



40 

 3 2, 047 



85 



203 



32 



a 65 



Thou- 

 sands 

 656 



■' 168 



53 

 44 



31 



Thou- 

 sands 

 1,075 



Veneer 



241 



Cooperage . _ _ ... 



93 



Fuel wood ... 



2,047 



Miscellaneous* 



129 



Cross ties ... 



203 



Poles and piles _ . 



32 



Fence posts 



65 



Treating plants 



31 







2,964 



952 



3,916 









1 Lumber tally. 



2 Includes fabrication in crate and package plants. 



3 Includes 166,600 cords of commercial fuel wood; also includes 50,600 

 cords of fuel wood used in stilling operations, but the labor for this is ac- 

 counted for in the section on Gum Naval Stores Industry. 



4 Includes pulpwood, shingle mills, etc. 



8 Includes 400,000 commercial fence posts, on which 6,000 man-days of 

 labor were expended. 



8 The units of material treated are included in the respective commodi- 

 ties. 



Table 23. — Number of sawmills, classified according to species 

 cut and capacity, 1936 



Daily (10-hour) capacity 

 (M board feet) 



Pine 



Hard- 

 wood 



All 

 species 



Under 20 



310 

 20 

 3 



10 



310 



20 to 39 



30 



40 and over _ _ 



3 







All mills.. 



333 



10 



343 







90 percent were small, with a daily capacity of less 

 than 20,000 board feet (table 23), and many were 

 intermittently operated. There were no mills with 

 a daily capacity of 80,000 board feet or more. 



More than 1 million man-days of employment 

 were furnished by the lumber industry in 1936 in 

 both the woods and mills. While a few of the 

 mills were operating in large tracts of timber, 

 most of them were dependent for logs on small 

 scattered bodies of second-growth timber. 



Truck logging is almost universal; only a few 

 operators transport their logs by tram or water. 

 Truck logging is most effective within a radius of 

 30 miles of a mill and often results in the logging 

 of isolated patches of only a few trees. 



43 



