NORTH CAROLINA FOREST RESOURCES AND 



INDUSTRIES 



The Forest Resource 



««- 



Naval stores, produced first in Virginia soon after 1600 

 were staple products of North Carolina by 1700. Copper 

 stills for the distillation of turpentine were introduced in 

 1834. With the passage of the British free trade law of 

 1846 and the increasing use of turpentine in the paint 

 "and varnish industries, such emphasis was placed upon 

 the production of naval stores that lumber was tempo- 

 rarily of secondary importance. The naval stores industry 

 grew rapidly, except for the period of the Civil War, 

 reaching maximum production between 1870 and 1880. 

 In the last year of this decade North Carolina exported 

 nearly half a million barrels of turpentine. But with the 

 expansion of longleaf pine, logging naval stores production 

 fell off steadily, dwindling to an insignificant 160 barrels 

 in 1940. 



The present-day forest resource is one of North Carolina's 

 most valuable assets. At a conservative estimate, it has a 

 stumpage value of 2188,000,000 distributed as indicated 

 below and summarized in figure 13. 



Loblolly pine $79,427,500 



Shortleaf pine 31,608,600 



Red oaks 12,363,500 



Sweetgum 9,551,200 



White oaks 9,062,300 



Tupelos 8,066,700 



Yellow poplar 6,246,400 



Pond pine 5,274,600 



Longleaf pine 4,873,700 



Cypress .' 3,739,400 



Virginia pine 2,256,200 



White pine 1,677,200 



Chestnut 1,632,200 



White-cedar 1,029,900 



Other softwoods 1,198,300 



Other hardwoods 9,574,100 



Total 187,581,800 



Approximately 3,000 primary wood-using plants get 

 their raw material from the forest and employ at least 

 33,000 workmen in the manufacture of forest products 

 valued at about $50,000,000 annually. By using building 

 material that is grown and manufactured locally, North 

 Carolina people each year save several million dollars, 

 representing the extra cost of obtaining the material from 

 other sources. Forest lands account for about 7 percent of 



Past and Present Importance 



FORESTS have been a source of revenue and employ- 

 ment to the people of North Carolina from the 

 time of the first permanent white settlement about 

 1650 somewhere to the east of the Chowan River. The 

 seemingly boundless forest affected the everyday life and 

 policies of the developing colonies. In 1732 Governor 

 Barrington wrote to the Colonial Secretary 4 in England 

 that "abundance of sawmills are erecting here by which 

 the builders propose to carry on a trade in boards and 

 other sawed timber." And again, about that time, he 

 wrote of "the granting 5,000 acres or more to each owner 

 of a mill." 



As early as 1750, longleaf pine lumber was exported 

 from Wilmington to the West Indies and England. Ex- 

 ploitation of the forest resource did not begin on any 

 considerable scale, however, until after the erection of 

 the first steam sawmill at Wilmington about 1818. From 

 1820 to 1880, lumber production remained at a fairly 

 constant level. Then large-scale logging began in the 

 virgin longleaf pine stands of the Coastal Plain and in 

 less than 20 years most of them were cut out. About 

 1900 the lumber industry turned to the loblolly and short- 

 leaf pine stands, where operations have continued ever 

 since. About this time, too, band-saw mills began to cut 

 the virgin hardwoods of the North Carolina mountains. 

 Large sawmills were not established in the piedmont 

 because the early settlers destroyed most of the virgin 

 timber there in clearing land for agriculture. 



From 1900 the cut of all species was gradually increased, 

 reaching some 2 billion board feet in 1909 and 2% billion 

 feet in the peak year, 1914. By this time a large part of 

 the rich accumulation of virgin timber was gone, and the 

 forest industries perforce began adjusting requirements 

 to the periodic yields of second-growth timber. This 

 adaptability to changing conditions has enabled them 

 to continue to flourish, tor the second-growth timber, 

 although usually of inferior quality, has restocked plenti- 

 fully most of the cut-over forest land of the State. 



* Saunders, W. L., the colonial records of north Carolina. 10 v. 

 Raleigh, N. C. 1886. 



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