The war has greatly stimulated the demand for 

 veneer, particularly for plywood in the construction 

 of training, combat, and cargo aircraft. Existing 

 mills have been stepped up nearly to capacity oper- 

 ation, and new units have been added. In June 

 1942 a veneer and plywood plant that is one of 

 the largest producers of aircraft plywood in the 

 Southeast went into production at Hampton, S. C. 



The principal source of veneer logs and bolts has 

 been the old-growth river-swamp hardwoods of the 

 Coastal Plain; and with the reduction of these sup- 

 plies by logging, the veneer industry has lowered its 

 specifications to include bolts of smaller diameters 

 and shorter lengths. Old-growth still provides the 

 greater part of the raw material, although more and 

 more veneer is being produced from second-growth 

 trees. 



Few veneer companies own their own timber- 

 lands. Most of them buy logs or bolts delivered at 

 the mill, or purchase stumpage and contract the 

 cutting and delivery. Logs are obtained also from 

 lumber companies, whose best-quality material 

 usually brings higher prices for veneer than for lum- 

 ber. Prices for veneer bolts, which average about 

 18 inches in diameter and are usually cut in 4-foot 

 lengths, range at the mill from $15 to $30 per thous- 

 and board feet, Doyle scale, depending upon the 

 quality. Logs suitable for aircraft veneer bring 

 much higher prices, often between $75 and $100 per 

 thousand. 



Pulp and Paper 



In the latter part of the 1930's a new demand was 

 placed upon southern forests through the establish- 

 ment of large pulp and paper mills, mostly along the 

 Coastal Plain. Before 1937, there was only one 

 small pulp mill in South Carolina, operated by the 

 Carolina Fiber Company at Hartsville. This pro- 

 duced corrugated board and wrapping paper from 

 blackgum by the semi-chemical process. Mills in 

 adjoining States drew but lightly on South Carolina 

 for their supplies, although some wood was shipped 

 by water to New York. 



Two new paper mills were completed in 1937 — 

 the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company mill at 

 Charleston and the Southern Kraft Division mill of 

 the International Paper Company at Georgetown — 

 with a combined daily capacity of 1,015 tons of sul- 

 fate pulp and 950 tons of kraft paper and container 

 board, representing annual wood requirements of 

 about 575,000 cords of pine (fig. 39). Because of 

 growing demands for kraft paper, the mills nearly 



reached their capacity in 1939. Since the outbreak 

 of the war, demand has increased further and to 

 meet it, production has been stepped up through 

 greater efficiency of operation and the construction 

 of additional units. In 1942 their combined capacity 

 was almost 2,000 tons of sulfate pulp every 24 hours. 

 The effect of this stepped-up output on the State's 

 pulpwood supplies has been intensified by the de- 

 mands of new mills in Georgia which get some of 

 their raw material from South Carolina. In 1940 

 pulpwood production in South Carolina amounted to 

 588,100 cords; in 1941, 805,000 cords; and in 1942, 

 it reached 946,000 cords. 



Since the establishment of the kraft mills, more 

 than 90 percent of the pulpwood produced in South 

 Carolina has been of pine, most of it from the Coast- 

 al Plain. A portion comes from timberlands owned 

 and managed by the paper companies, but the 

 greater part is obtained by purchase. Stumpage 

 prices range from $0.25 to $1.50 a cord, depending 

 upon location and condition of the stands and the 

 bargaining ability of the owners. 



The hardwoods of the South Carolina Coastal 

 Plain have hitherto been little used for pulp, but 

 recent developments at kraft mills in other Southern 

 States indicate that pulping of hardwoods by the 

 sulfate process is practicable and that hardwoods 

 can contribute increasingly to future pulpwood pro- 

 duction. The large volume of cull hardwoods on 

 the Coastal Plain would help meet the present heavy 

 demand for pine pulpwood without depleting the 

 hardwood growing stock suitable for other purposes. 

 Cull blackgum, in particular, is abundant through- 

 out the region, frequently in pure stands which are 

 readily accessible and suitable only for pulpwood. 

 Thinnings in both hardwood and mixed pine-hard- 

 wood stands could furnish large quantities of pulp- 

 wood and, at the same time, improve the quality 

 and growing conditions of the remainder of the 

 stand. 



Naval Stores 



The production of turpentine and rosin in South 

 Carolina dates from the colonial period, but its most 

 rapid growth took place between 1850 and 1880. 

 The peak — 4,600,000 gallons of turpentine — was 

 reached in 1879. Output declined in the following 

 decades because of the rapid expansion of lumbering, 

 which greatly reduced the quantity of turpentine 

 pines (longleaf and slash). In the year April 1936 

 to March 1937, South Carolina produced 728,500 

 gallons of turpentine and 45,040 barrels of rosin, the 



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