Forest Industries 



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The Lumber Industry 



LOUISIANA once hati some of the largest lumbering 

 operations east ot the Great Plains, and still leads 

 the South in number ot large sawmills. In 1937 the 

 Forest Survey recorded 557 sawmills in the State (table 9). 

 Slightly more than a tenth ot these had capacities ot 40 M 

 board feet or more per 10-hour day and were classed as 

 large mills, .'\nother tenth had daily capacities ot 20 to 

 39 M board feet. The remaining four-fifths (1 to 19 M 

 board feet) were mostly portables. 



In 1937, southwest Louisiana contained 12 sawmills 

 with 10-hour capacities of 80 M board teet or more, com- 

 prising most ot the mills ot this size in the State. Such 

 mills sawing longleat pine were located at Zimmerman, 

 Alco, Longleat, and Leesville; others sawing chiefly hard- 



Table 9. Number nj sawmills in each survey unit, by capacity per 10-hour 

 day, anil kind of timber cut, 1937 and 1940 



Survey unit and 



papacKy cla.ss (M 



board feet) 



North delta: 



80-1- 



40-79 



20-;«) 

 1-1!) ... 

 South delta: 



40^79 



20 ;w 



Mil 



North i)ino; 



80-1- . 



40 70 



20-;iy . 



1 19. . 



South iiine: 



80-f 



40 79 



20 ;19 



1 19 

 All units: 

 80-f- 

 40-79 

 20 :«) 



1-10 



.Ml civiMxrilies. . 



I'ine mills 



1937 1940 



58 



Hardwood 

 mills 



36 



Cypress 

 mills 



1937 1940 



Unspeci- 

 fied 



1937 1940 



89 



123 



73 



13« 



444 



4«U 



444 468 



All mills 



1937 1940 



■103 



1.11 



130 



■164 



S67 



84 



14U 



166 



166 



ft6A 



wood, iit Oakdale and Trout. The south delta unit con- 

 tained 28 ot the medium and large sawmills ot 20 to 79 M 

 board teet capacity, and the north pine unit, 34; thus, 

 these two units had about two-thirds ot the mills in these 

 size groups in the State. Small mills were most numerous 

 in the south delta and south pine units. This distri- 

 bution ot mills is shown in figure 21. 



.Although the large mills numbered only 10 percent of 

 the total in 1937, they accounted for 68 percent of the 

 lumber produced. Medium-sized mills, ot which there 

 were slightly fewer, sawed 21 percent ot the lumber; and 

 small mills, which amount to 80 percent ot the total num- 

 ber of establishments, sawed only 1 1 percent (tig. 22). 



Within the next two decades, a number ot the mills 

 sawing as much as 80 M board teet per day will probably 

 cease operating, because of the inadequate supplies of 

 available timber near them. On the other hand, the 

 large areas of productive forest lands with maturing second- 

 growth stands should enable several companies operating 

 large sawmills to continue indefinitely. In 1940 the 

 number of mills in the State increased to 565, but the 

 increase was entirely in the class of mills with a daily 

 capacity ot less than 20 M board feet. The number of 

 meilium sized mills fell off from Sb to 51 and the large 

 mills from 58 to 45 (table 9). 



Small mills probably will continue to be nun\erous and 

 locally important, because of their adaptability to small 

 logging operations and their ability to supply rural areas 

 anil small towns with lumber at Uiw cost. .At this time, 

 however, there is little reason to believe that sm;ill mills 

 will manufacture as large a part ot the State's lumber 

 production as has happened in some parts of the Stiuthe.ist 

 and in the piedmont region. The increase in numlnrr ot 

 small mills between 1937 and 1940 increased the pnvliic- 

 tion of the class 64 percent; but even though the two l.irgcr 

 mill classes lost 11 mills, they still accounted tor S2 j^er 

 cent ot the lumber production of the State. 



A tew tlccailes ago, lumber manufacturers usualK pur- 

 chased timber rights to extensive tracts of land supjv t tmg 

 large volumes per acre, or Knight the land outright. Ltx;- 

 ilinu was done with skivlders v>r with animals, .md - ; 



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