FOREST INDUSTRY 



43 



The Increase in Output of Less Exacting Products 



By far the most prominent product change is the re- 

 placement of softwood sawlog production with soft- 

 wood pulpwood production ( fig. 45 ) . The volume 

 of pulpwood cut has increased nearly 100,000 cords a 

 year since 1936, enough to compensate, in terms of 

 solid volume, for the large decline in softwood lumber 

 manufacture from the average of the 1920's. 



Many factors are involved in these production fig- 

 ures, but one of the big factors is undoubtedly the 

 volume of timber of suitable size available. Sawlog 

 cutting requires larger trees. Necessity has forced 

 softwood sawlog loggers to cut ever smaller timber, yet 

 nearly three-fourths of the cut is still in trees at least 

 14 inches d. b. h. (fig. 46) . In contrast, the pulpwood 

 industry is geared to the use of small trees. Virtually 

 all the pulpwood cut comes from trees 6 to 12 inches 



d. b. h., a size range in which softwood timber has been 

 sufficiently abundant to support a rapid rise in pulp- 

 wood production. 



Similarly, cooperage output has changed from tight 

 cooperage, which depended chiefly on good quality 

 white oak, to slack cooperage, which takes a wider 

 variety of species, sizes, and grades. One product is 

 not a substitute in use for the other, but in regard to 

 volume, the substitution was more than enough to 

 sustain output. The point is that tight cooperage was 

 forced into decline in Mississippi as a result of the 

 early cutting out of the best white oak, but the cutting 

 of slack cooperage could expand because of less exact- 

 ing timber requirements. 



Fuller Utilizatio7i of Trees Cut 



Logging for sawlogs, veneer logs, cooperage bolts, 

 hewn ties, and miscellaneous log products leaves much 



Figure 44. — The increase in portable sawmills, which are adapted to the use oj small timber, has helped to sustain Mississippi's timber output as 



well as to encourage forest liquidation. 



