NORTH CAROLINA FOREST RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES 



The Forest-Products Industries 



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THE timber resources already described provide raw 

 material for several active torests-products indus- 

 tries. Lumber accounts tor nearly half of the value 

 of output, but other wood products are increasingly impor- 

 tant. Many different tree species and local markets for a 

 diversity of items make possible a wider range of forest 

 industrial activity than is found in most forest areas of 

 equal size. 



The growth of the furniture industry in North Carolina 

 has stimulated the manufacture of furniture veneers and 

 -plywood, dimension stock, and excelsior. Likewise the 

 production of fruit, potatoes, and other vegetables for 

 market has created a demand for baskets, hampers, barrels, 

 crates, and other containers supplied by local package 

 veneer and cooperage plants. The expanding pulp and 



paper industry finds an ample supply of pulping woods, 

 both pine and hardwood, in North Carolina, and the quan- 

 tity of chestnut and tanbark is great enough to give the 

 State high rank in the production of vegetable tanning 

 extracts. A small but necessary activity is the fabrication 

 of shallow tobacco baskets used in marketing the tobacco 

 crop of the State, and nearly 1 million cords of fuel wood 

 was consumed in curing tobacco. The numerous textile 

 mills use thousands of wooden shuttles, some of which are 

 fashioned from blanks made by shuttle-block mills in the 

 mountains and piedmont. Over half a million hewn cross 

 ties are sold to railroads each year. In 1938 the primary 

 forest industries included nearly 3,000 operating plants, 

 and the value of all forest products, including fuel wood, 

 was about $55,000,000 (table 22). 



BILLION 



BOARD FEET 



2.5 



2.0 



1.5 



1.0 



0.5 







905 



1910 



1915 



920 



1925 



1930 



1935 



1940 



Figure 33. — Lumber production in North Carolina, 1905-40. (1905-36, Bureau of the Census; 1937, Forest Survey 193S— 40,. Forest Survey in cooperation 



with Bureau of the Census.) 



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