FOEEST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 65 



the chipper it is carried to large vats. Through these vats boiling water 

 is circulated for about 24 hours, being pumped from one vat to the 

 next. The liquid thus obtained is finally boiled down under pressure, 

 until enough water is driven off to obtain an extract of the desired 

 strength. In this form it is shipped in tank cars to all parts of the 

 country. For export the liquor is still further boiled down till the 

 tannic acid crystallizes and forms a powder. This is shipped in bar- 

 rels > or sacks. An average of 70 gallons of the liquid extract, contain- 

 ing ' about 8 per cent pure tannic acid, is secured from each cord of 

 wood. 



The value of this industry, not only to the people but to the forests, 

 is not fully realized. The total stand of chestnut in the region is about 

 three billion board feet. Probably not more than 10 per cent of this 

 can, under present market conditions, be profitably used for the manu- 

 facture of lumber, so that there are at least five million cords of chest- 

 nut wood now standing. The greater part of this timber is over-mature 

 and deteriorating in quality, so that the longer it is left standing the 

 greater will be the loss. The tannin industry allows the utilization of 

 this material. This utilization, when properly carried out (see Man- 

 agement, p. 78) means that land now covered with such trees and there- 

 fore producing nothing can be made to grow new and better crops of 

 chestnut. 



PULP WOOD. 



Small amounts of pulp wood, chiefly poplar and linn, have been cut 

 and shipped from the mountain region of ITorth Carolina to pulp mills 

 in adjoining states for the past ten years or more. Three or four 

 years ago, however, after the Champion Fiber Co., of Canton, Haywood 

 County, began buying wood, the industry became important. This 

 company, which operates the only paper manufacturing plant in West- 

 ern ^^'orth Carolina, uses some nine different species of timber, em- 

 ploys more than 600 hands, and converts into paper practically all the 

 pulp wood cut in this region, besides a large quantity of chestnut ex- 

 tract wood. 



Five different classes of wood are used by this factory, all of them 

 being manufactured by chemical processes into the better quality of 

 magazine paper, while "screenings'' and other waste are made into 

 coarse, heavy wrapping paper. It is planned to make each cord of 

 wood produce, on an average, a thousand pounds of pulp. As each 

 class of pulp wood, in this region, is handled in a somewhat distinc- 

 tive way, and the production of each has a somewhat varying effect 

 upon the forest, these classes are separately described. 

 5 



