Forest Industry 



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FOREST INDUSTRY has been prominent in Missis- 

 sippi's economy for more than a half century. As 

 the resource declined, output of some timber prod- 

 ucts was forced into decline also. Other products ex- 

 panded, however, and at least over the past three dec- 

 ades, the total output of timber products in Mississippi 

 has changed but little. Forest industry remains as a 

 principal part of the State's economy. 



Production 



The 1946 cubic volume of all timber products in the 

 round or split piece was 473 million cubic feet — 239 

 million in hardwood, 234 million in softwood. 



In softwood volume, the spotlight is held primarily 

 by sawlogs and secondarily by pulpwood (table 4). 

 Together these items account for 85 percent of the 

 total. Poles and piling are a poor third. Among 

 hardwood products, fuel wood is just behind sawlogs 

 in volume, though far behind in value. Pulpwood, in 

 third place, has come up rapidly, but still coinprises 

 only 8 percent of the hardwood output. 



Table 4. — Distribution of softwood and hardwood volume in Missis- 

 sippi, by round and split timber product, 7946 



Product 



Sawlogs 



Fuel wood 



Pulpwood 



Poles and piling 

 Cooperage bolts 



Veneer logs 



All other 



Total 



Softwood 



Percent 



(>) 



100 



Hardwood 



Percent 



100 



All species 



Percent 



46 

 19 

 19 



3 

 3 

 3 

 7 



100 



1 Negligible. 



Softwood lumber was the first timber product to 

 achieve commercial prominence in Mississippi. From 

 1904 through 1929, softwood lumber manufacture in 

 Mississippi rose at the average rate of nearly 20 mil- 

 lion board feet a year. But in 1929 the era of big 

 production came abruptly to its end. Softwood lum- 



ber output plunged from 2.2 billion board feet in 1929 

 to a low of 0.4 billion in 1932 ( fig. 35) . 



Softwood lumber manufacture was sharply cur- 

 tailed over the whole country by the Great Depres- 

 sion, but after 1932 it climbed back fairly rapidly. 

 During 1939-46, national annual softwood lumber 

 production averaged 90 percent of what it was in the 

 1920's (for the South as a whole, it averaged about 75 

 percent). In Mississippi, however, no such recovery 

 took place; annual softwood lumber output averaged 

 less than half that of the 1920's. The depletion of 

 pine had been carried too far to permit more than a 

 partial recovery. 



Hardwood lumber manufacture in Mississippi, until 

 recent years, lagged far behind softwood. Its peak 

 of 567 million board feet in 1924 was only one-fourth 

 of softwood manufacture in the same year. Never- 

 theless, the trend of hardwood lumber production has 

 been up over the years, and wartime output of hard- 

 wood lumber was greater than in any previous years 

 (fig. 36). _ 



Since pine was in short supply during the war, hard- 

 wood production was stimulated. The stand of hard- 

 wood saw timber was one-third greater than softwood 

 and quality was of less concern than at any time before 

 or after; hardwood could, therefore, be drawn on to 

 help meet the intense wartime demand. By 1945, 

 hardwood manufacture was nearly nine-tenths of soft- 

 wood. Since the war, however, hardwood production 

 has shown signs of a contraction which is likely to 

 prove more than temporary. 



Most notable of all timber production trends in 

 Mississippi is the spectacular growth of pulpwood 

 cutting. From less than 300,000 standard cords ( 128 

 cubic feet per cord) in 1936, output jumped to 1,434,- 

 000 cords in 1948 — the average increase was nearly 

 100.000 cords a year (fig. 37) . A remarkable feature 

 of this upward trend has been its steady persistence 

 through major changes in the economy from peace to 

 war to peace again. 



Other timber products have followed different pat- 

 terns of output. Veneer-log production has gone 



35 



