Figure 39. — In 1938 more than 

 4,000 men were employed in the 

 57 veneer -plants in the State. 



Nearly all the veneer is sold locally, largely to the fur- 

 niture industry. About 600 million square feet of this 

 semifinished product is manufactured in a year by 38 

 plants, which use 71 million board feet of bolts. The 

 bolts average 18 inches in diameter and are chiefly yellow 

 poplar, sweetgum, black and water tupelos, and white oak. 

 The average 1938 price paid for bolts was $25 per M board 

 leet delivered at the plant. 



To provide materials lor packaging; the truck crops and 

 fruit that are grown in considerable quantity in the State, 

 19 plants manufacture package veneers (fig. 39). They 

 use in a year some 39 million board feet of bolts, in making 

 about 300 million square feet of veneer. Black and water 

 tupelos, sweetgum, and loblolly pine are the principal 

 species used and the bolts average 12 to 16 inches in 

 diameter. 



The veneer industry will probably continue to expand. 

 The State already has a high rank in the manufacture of 

 wooden household furniture and the continued growth of 

 this industry increases the market for veneer. The demand 

 for container veneers is at present gaining enormous im- 

 petus from war demands. Before the war emergency, it 

 appeared to be paralleling the increase in the acreage of 

 truck crops, which has been almost 50 percent in the past 

 decade. If the active veneer plants operated 275 8-hour 

 days per year, thev would consume about 130 million 

 board feet of bolts and increase their production about 

 15 percent. Wood supplies are adequate for an even 

 greater consumption, particularly it more of the high-grade 

 logs are devoted to this use instead of to lumber. High- 

 quality yellow poplar is scarce in the territory of some 



plants, but in the Coastal Plain there is a great quantity 

 of black and water tupelos suitable for veneer. 



Pulp 



In 1941 there were tour plants in North Carolina manu- 

 facturing wood pulp. One at Roanoke Rapids started pro- 

 duction in February 1909, and was the first mill to manu- 

 facture sulfate pulp commercially in the United States; 

 it was also the first to use southern yellow pine in the sul- 

 fate process. Another was established at Canton in 1907 

 and 30 years later was making sulfate, bleached sulfite, and 

 soda pulp as well as a great variety of papers. A third 

 plant was a sulfate pulp mill, constructed at Plymouth in 

 1937; in 1940 additions, including new equipment doubled 

 its capacity. The fourth is a semichemical plant at Sylva. 



According to Post's Paper Mill Directory of 1941 the 

 combined 24-hour capacity of these four establishments is 

 710 tons of sulfate pulp, 150 tons of soda, 125 of sulfite, 

 and 70 of semichemical, a total of 1,055 short tons of pulp. 

 This is about 3 percent of the national pulp-mill capacity, 

 but gives North Carolina tenth place among the pulp-pro- 

 ducing States. The mills operated at two-thirds of capac- 

 ity in 1938, making pulp valued at about $7,000,000 

 exclusive of the value of paper manufactured at Canton 

 and Sylva. 



Operating 310 days per year, normally considered to 

 represent full capacity, these four plants could produce 

 about 327,000 tons of pulp, using approximately 650,000 

 standard cords of wood. They used 406,000 cords in 1938, 

 and paid for it about $2,500,000. Sixty-six percent of the 



554015° — 43- 



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