46 



MISSISSIPPI'S FOREST RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES 



However, current pulpwood production is twice as 

 much as it averaged during the 14 years between the 

 two SurN'cys. Even if softwood pulpwood output 

 should remain stationary at the 1948 level of 1.2 mil- 

 lion cords, the increase over the inter-Survey average 

 annual production alone will be enough to cause the 

 softwood inventor)' in 6- to 12-inch trees to go down 

 about one-fifth in another 14 years.^° 



Perhaps more important to the future of pulpwood 

 production in Mississippi is the fact that sawlog cutting 

 for lumber has been moving steadily into the smaller 

 tree sizes which are used for pulpwood. If the trend 

 of softwood sawlog inventory continues downward at 

 its current rate of at least two percent a year, an even 

 larger proportion of sawlogs will come from small tree 

 sizes, and competition between the pulp and lumber 

 industries will become much sharper. 



Veneer 



Four-fifths of all veneer production is from sweet- 

 gum, black and tupelo gums, cottonwood, and yellow- 



" Based on the assumptions of no change in the kind of 

 timber used by industry and the amount of improvement in 

 forest management, and considering the ingrowth from smaller 

 tree sizes. 



poplar; and most of the production is from trees 16 

 inches d. b. h. and larger. The resource in these 

 species and sizes is some 2,700 million board feet. 

 Grade limitations cut down the resource which ^vould 

 be usable, by current standards, to no more than 1,750 

 million feet. To this inventory, probably less than 90 

 million feet a year are added in growth. 



This resource might maintain the present level of 

 drain for veneer (128 million board feet in 1946) for 

 many years. But other industries, particularly lum- 

 ber, compete for the same tree species, sizes, and grades, 

 and in fact, take a far bigger annual cut out of them 

 than does the veneer industry'. The effect of this 

 competition is seen in the declines in the number of 

 hardwood trees 16 inches and larger between 1932-35 

 and 1946-48 (fig. 47). When it is realized also that 

 declines have been even greater in the better tree 

 grades and species which are used for veneer stock, 

 the rapidity of depletion in the resource used for 

 veneer becomes apparent. 



Cooperage 



The prospect as to the timber resource for slack coop- 

 erage is favorable, but \vhether production can be in- 

 creased is another question. Hardwood invcntorv and 

 growth might support further expansion of slack coop- 



FiGURE 47. — Box veneer. 

 The long-term trend of 

 veneer-log production is 

 upward, although the kind 

 of timber now used is be- 

 ing rapidly depleted. 



