VIRGINIA FOREST 
RESOURGES AND INDUSTRIES 
The Forest Resource 
77> 
Early Aitstory 
HE first permanent settlement of colonists in 
ae Virginia, at Jamestown in 1607, was founded 
in part because of England’s desperate need for 
masts, ship timbers, and naval stores. 
ent upon a precarious supply of these products from 
the Baltic countries, she found it imperative to discover 
Long depend- 
new sources or suffer loss in naval strength, and hence 
in world power, among the nations. Consequently 
she welcomed the opportunity in the New World to 
“ ... help ourselves out of Virginia ... ,” and 
to relieve “. . . the great and pitiful waste of our 
English woods...” (J). 
fore, that in 1608 a ship is reported to have returned 
It is not surprising, there- 
to England bearing “pitch, tarre, clapboard, and 
waynscot,’ (2) and that in 1609 a cargo of “fower 
score” masts was exported to the mother country. 
Although large quantities of timber were used by 
the colonists or exported during the next several 
decades, these uses had little effect upon the forests 
in comparison with the wasteful process of tobacco 
culture that developed shortly after the colony was 
founded. Faced with producing an export commod- 
ity that would yield the highest profits to the English 
proprietors and provide for themselves necessities 
that a primitive country could not offer, the colo- 
nists quickly turned to tobacco culture. This crop 
soon came to dominate colonial agriculture because 
it best could stand the long journey and high trans- 
It continued to dominate for more 
than a century despite the fact that planters could 
count on only 3 or 4 seasons’ yield from land before 
portation costs. 
the soil became excessively depleted. ‘Thus was set in 
motion a cycle of land clearing, cropping for a few 
years, abandonment, and reversion to pine forests, 
that was extremely wasteful. George Washington re- 
marked that “We ruin the lands that are already 
cleared and either cut down more wood if we have it, 
a half, a 
third, or even a fourth of what land we mangle, well 
wrought and properly dressed, would produce more 
than the whole under our system of management; yet 
or emigrate into the western country . 
KE 
such is the force of habit, that we cannot depart from 
it.” Thus, until the middle of the nineteenth century, 
agricultural development rather than industrial or 
local use was the principal cause of forest exploitation. 
Nevertheless, use of the forests for timber was not 
entirely neglected. It is probable, though not proved, 
that the first sawmill in America was operated at 
Jamestown in 1608. Captain John Smith in his His- 
‘tory of Virginia, advising the colonists to “remove this 
usurping growth,” nevertheless noted that it “might 
itself be converted into a source of wealth.” For the 
first 150 to 200 years almost all lumber mills were 
small sash-saw affairs powered by waterwheels and 
were perforce located near sources of water power. 
The output of a mill of this type probably did not 
exceed 2 to 3 thousand feet a day, and they operated 
only infrequently. It was not until the introduction 
of steam-powered circular-saw mills about 1820 that 
any considerable exploitation of the forest began, and 
not until after the Civil War, with the extension of 
steam railroads over the State, that the real harvest 
of the State’s virgin timber took place. Large band 
mills then replaced many of the small circular mills. 
Lumber output reached its peak in 1909, when Vir- 
ginia produced 2.1 billion board feet, a figure never 
approached again. By the time of the outbreak of 
World War I most of the virgin pine and better hard- 
woods had passed through the mills, forcing the indus- 
try to depend on the periodic yield of second-growth 
timber, for which the large band mills were not suited. 
These mills have largely been replaced by a host of 
small circular-saw, gasoline- or steam-powered, port- 
able mills, from which the bulk of production now 
comes. Because of the State’s suitability for timber 
growth, second-growth stands have restocked almost 
all of the cut-over lands, although the quality of the 
growth is frequently inferior to that of the original 
forest. 
As has been noted, “pitch and tarre” were among 
the earliest exports of Virginia. In colonial times such 
exports for the use of “His Majesty’s Royal Navy” were 
an important forest product. Virginia, however, 
lacked the stands of longleaf and slash pine from 
Miscellaneous Publication 681, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
