generated close to a billion dollars annually in wages and 
salaries, the third highest total for any State in the South. 
Timber-based manufacturing in Florida and Oklahoma to- 
gether added another three-quarters of a billion dollars to 
State and regional incomes. 
Relative Importance of Forest Industries by Type 
The great diversity of forest products manufactured in the 
South makes it difficult to categorize forest industries by 
type. It is often useful, however, to group forest industries 
into those that produce products made of solid wood and 
those that use primarily wood fibers. This basic division 
highlights differences between industries in the size and 
quality of the timber required and the degree of processing 
involved. Manufacturing of wood furniture is another indus- 
try that has somewhat specialized raw material needs, pro- 
duction processes, and markets. 
The lumber and solid wood products industry includes 
loggers, sawmills, and planing mills that produce the initial 
raw material as roundwood and process it directly into mar- 
ketable goods, such as lumber, dimension stock, and 
flooring. It also includes manufacturers of other products 
from roundwood, such as plywood and veneer, goods man- 
ufactured from primary products such as millwork, nailed 
boxes, pallets, wood buildings, and mobile homes. This 
segment of the industry also includes processors of gums 
and wood chemicals, and wood-preserving firms. 
Wood furniture manufacturing includes all-wood furniture 
for household or office use, upholstered furniture on wood 
frames, shelving, partitions, and other wood fixtures. 
The manufacture of wood fiber or pulp and paper products 
involves an initial stage of processing, where mills produce 
woodpulp and reconstitute it into paper, paperboard, build- 
ing paper, or building board; and secondary stages in which 
this material is converted into a wide range of finished 
products, such as fine-grade papers, stationery, containers, 
bags, and boxes. 
The relative importance of each of these sectors of forest 
industry in the South and within regions and States is shown 
in appendix table 1.9. 
Over half of the 17,000 forest industry establishments in 
the South in 1982 were logging contractors, sawmills, or 
planing mills; two-thirds of this number were logging 
contractors. Manufacturers of other solid wood products, 
such as plywood, veneer, millwork, wood buildings, and 
containers, and wood-preserving firms, constituted another 
one-quarter of the establishments. Twelve percent of the for- 
est industry establishments manufactured furniture or fixtures 
from wood. Converted paper and paperboard products ac- 
counted for 8 percent of the establishments. Pulp, paper, 
paperboard, and building paper and board mills represented 
only | percent of the total. These percentages reflect the 
character of different industries more than their importance 
in the South. Logging and sawmill operations, for example, 
tend to be smaller and more dispersed than pulp and pa- 
per manufacturing, which requires large-scale, capital- 
intensive plants. 
In terms of employment, the lumber and wood products in- 
dustry is the most important sector of the forest industries 
(fig. 1.9). In 1982, this sector had 233,000 workers, or 42 
percent of the total employment in forest industry manufac- 
turing in the South. The pulp and paper products industry 
accounted for 178,000 employees, 32 percent of the total. 
The wood furniture sector had 146,000 employees, 26 per- 
cent of total employment. 
Logging and sawmills 
17.9% 
Plywood, wood 
products 
24.0% 
Paper and 
paperboard 
products 
17.1% 
Pulp, paper and Wood furniture 
paperboard mills 14.9% 26.2% 
Figure 1.9—Distribution of employment among forest 
industry sectors in the South, 1982 
i) 
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