In 1934-36, 36 million trees were faced in Florida; 
by the 1948-49 season, only 14 million trees were 
faced. During this period production has declined 
less in Northeast Florida (fig. 10) than in other sec- 
tions of the State. Three-fourths of the working trees 
are now located there, compared to two-thirds at 
the time of the first Forest Survey. 
Several factors contribute to the decline in gum 
production. One is the competition of the wood 
naval stores industry with the gum naval stores in- 
dustry for relatively limited markets. Improvements 
in processing techniques along with the development 
of highly mechanized methods of extracting stumps 
have made it possible for the wood naval stores indus- 
try to market products approximately comparable in 
price and quality with products made from crude 
gum. At the same time, the cost of producing gum has 
gone up—especially the cost of labor, which accounts 
for two-thirds of the cost of making a barrel of gum 
(21). To keep laborers from seeking work in the 
growing industrial sections, it has become necessary 
for gum producers to pay higher wages for a shorter 
working day. Also, the production of gum naval stores 
is not easily adapted to the alternate periods of over- 
The Timber Supply Situation in Florida 
supply and undersupply accompanied by extreme 
price fluctuations which characterize the naval stores 
industry. As wood naval stores industries captured a 
larger and larger share of the market, the production 
of crude gum became increasingly less attractive as 
a financial venture. In view of these developments, 
which have taken place in the past two decades, 
many gum producers decided to reduce their crops 
or turn to other occupations. The result has been a 
steady decline in the number of faces worked. 
Two types of plants use old-growth longleaf and 
slash pine stumps, and other pitch-soaked wood. De- 
structive-distillation plants produce pine tar, pine oil, 
charcoal, and a small amount of turpentine by plac- 
ing the wood in retorts and subjecting it to intense 
heat. Steam-distillation plants use chips from stumps 
and resinous stem wood, which is first steamed to 
remove the turpentine and other volatile oil and 
then boiled in solvents to remove the rosin. In 1948, 
there were three destructive-distillation plants and 
one large steam-distillation plant in Florida. These 
and plants outside the State used more than 700,000 
tons of pine stump wood. 
15 
