FOREST 



RESOURCES 



O E 



SOUTH 



GEORGIA 



Naval Stores 



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THE history of the gum naval stores industry 

 goes back to the days of wooden sailing ships, 

 when the tar and pitch extracted from the 

 resinous pines of New England were used in the con- 

 struction and repair of wooden navy and merchant- 

 marine vessels. The commodity thus derived its 

 name — naval stores. When it was discovered that 

 the yield of turpentine and rosin from slash and 

 longleaf pines was far greater than that from the 

 northern species of pine and that the southern pines 

 were easier and cheaper to work, the industry 

 shifted to the South and became one of the leading 

 branches of agriculture. 



Georgia assumed the leadership in production 

 late in the ninteenth century, with Savannah as the 

 principal export, marketing, and financial center of 

 the industry, and retained it until shortly before 

 1905, when Florida assumed 

 the leadership and developed 

 a separate marketing center at 

 Jacksonville. The favorable 

 prices of turpentine and rosin 

 immediately after the World 

 War, together with the more 

 general adoption of improved 

 naval stores woods practices, 

 made possible the utilization of 

 much smaller and younger 

 second-growth timber; and in 

 1923 Georgia again assumed 

 the lead (fig. 16). 



The naval stores industry of 

 south Georgia has two impor- 

 tant branches: (1) The gum 

 naval stores branch, which uses 



branch, which uses seasoned stumps and lightwood. 

 In 1936, there was no recovery of sulfate turpentine 

 or liquid rosin as a byproduct of the pulp and paper 

 industry in south Georgia, but with the develop- 

 ment of this practice and the construction of new 

 kraft mills, this phase of the industry also may 

 become important. 



Gum Naval Stores Industry 



In 1933-34 this important industry worked 6,700 

 crops in south Georgia, produced approximately 

 287,000 naval stores units 4 valued at more than 

 $13,000,000, and furnished employment in the 



4 A crop consists of 10,000 faces. A naval stores unit is 

 made up of one 50-gallon barrel of turpentine and three 

 and one-third 500-pound (gross) barrels of rosin. 



gum extracted from live trees; 

 and (2) the wood naval stores 



Figure 16. — Rosin storage yard, Savannah, Ga., the financial and marketing center of the 



naval stores industry. 



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