small portable mills. One possibility might be plants 
equipped with dry kilns and suitable machinery to 
manufacture packaged lots of short-lengthed clear lumber 
for sale to furniture plants. Flooring could also be 
produced. This would provide markets for hardwood 
lumber cut by small mills, and might divert some of 
the present pine-mill operators to cutting hardwoods. 
Cull hardwoods in South Carolina amount to 28.8 
million cords. The development of a commercial use 
for this material would go a long way toward improving 
the productivity of the present forest stands. There are 
many lines of research now under way that will expand 
the markets for these low-grade hardwoods. A promising 
use is the manufacture of molasses for cattle feeding. 
A number of plants producing molasses from wood in 
South Carolina would complement the developing cattle 
industry in the State. 
There is also room for plants that could use manu- 
facturing wastes such as shavings and sawdust. A survey 
in 1944 of eight counties around Columbia disclosed 
an annual production of 332,000 tons (oven-dry) of 
pine wood waste, including slabs, edgings, and sawdust 
from sawmills, and sawdust and shavings from con- 
centration yards (fig. 61). About 188,000 tons of this 
was not used and would be available, for instance, to 
a plant manufacturing wallboard. A number of such 


plants are now being erected in the United States. 
More are being planned. 
Many forest products are shipped out of the State as 
rough lumber. Further refinement or manufacture of 
this lumber into finished products would permit the 
establishment of new industries, such as furniture and 
millwork plants, without adding to the drain pressure 
on the timber resources. 
IMPROVE TIMBER-GROWING PRACTICES 
Building up the growing stock will take more than 
adjusting the drain pattern and guiding forest industrial 
development. Easing the drain on timber overcut and 
in short supply may serve to arrest forest deterioration. 
But this alone will not improve the stocking and quality 
of forest stands. Additional measures are needed to 
build growing stock productivity up to the level required 
to sustain present and future drain on the forest. 
Natural increases in young timber can be expected 
to eliminate some of these shortages in growing stock. 
In the Piedmont, where young timber is already in 
good supply, softwood saplings have increased by one- 
third since 1936, This increase is equivalent to 20,000 
acres of adequately stocked land a year. The increase in 
hardwoods was even greater. Thus, regeneration in the 


FIGURE 61.— Three-year accumulation of sawdust and shavings at concentration yard at Blaney, S. C. 
54 Forest Resource Report No. 3, U. S. Department of Agriculture 

