Use of Timber in Florida 
YHY 
LORIDA’S forest industries make heavy de- 
mands upon the timber resource. Some 684 
sawmills, distributed from Pensacola to the 
Keys, cut more than one-half billion board feet of 
lumber annually, 8 large pulp mills consume at least 
a million cords of wood each year, veneer plants use 
nearly 100 million board feet of logs to make crates 
and boxes for citrus and truck crops, and wood naval 
stores plants in Florida and adjoining States annu- 
ally harvest nearly three-fourths of a million tons 
of old-growth stumps. Nearly 14 million trees are 
chipped for their gum, Millions more are cut for 
hewn cross ties, poles, piles, fence posts, and fuel 
wood. All together, the production of these various 
forest products resulted, in 1948, in the cutting of 
937 million board feet of saw timber and 2.7 million 
cords of wood from trees 5.0 inches d.b.h.* and larger, 
including saw timber. 
Z ec definition of terms used in this report, see appendix 
Sawlogs and pulpwood are the principal products 
(fig. 2). These, together with veneer bolts and hewn 
cross ties, accounted for 94 percent of the total vol- 
ume of wood cut in 1948 from sound trees. Of the 
timber cut 81 percent was pine, 8 percent was cy- 
press, and 11 percent various species of hardwoods. 
The amount of wood cut from Florida’s forests 
has decreased since 1936, largely as a result of the 
decline in the lumber industry. In spite of tremen- 
dous wartime demands for lumber, the total cubic 
volume of timber cut in 1944 was 2 percent less than 
in 1936. By 1948 the volume cut had dropped to 14 
percent below 1936. This is in sharp contrast to some 
of the other Southern States. In South Carolina, for 
example, commodity drain in 1942 was 42 percent 
above 1936 and still was 25 percent above the 1936 
level in 1946. 
Timber Used for Lumber 
In spite of the decline in the lumber industry, 
timber cut for sawlogs is still the biggest item of 
| pRobucT AGE SPEGIES PINE 
SAWLOGS 
PULPWOOD 
VENEER LOGS 
HEWN TIES 
POLES & PILING 
FUELWOOD 
OTHER 
PERCENT 
PERCENT 
Ficure 2.—Distribution of commodity drain in Florida, by forest product, 1948. (Percentages based on cubic-foot volume.) 
The Timber Supply Situation in Florida 
7 
