The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-03-02
\ GREAT LUMBER TRUST.

The Messenger has been diligent
through a~decade in warning own
ers of North Carolina lands and forests
not to sell their property unless for
high prices. 1t has again and again
essayed to impress the armer and
others to save their trees so far as it
was possible to do so, and not to
slaughter forests with the unwisdOm
and ignorance of the men who lived
prior to 1860. The time is sure to come
to the south, as it has come to Italy,
Austria, Germany, in parts, when the
destruction of forests shall prove a Sc
rious calamity, increasing sickness and
causing droughts, and making the
lands barren.
We see constant statements in eX-
changes of the visitation of northern
capitalists into our state for the pur-
pose of purchasing vast wooded lands.
Great districts are actually bought by
northern people, and if the thing were
to continue for fifty years this great
state of 500 miles across it. would be
about owned by northern spectators
and manufacturers. Do you think
this idle talk? If so you are not wise
but ignorant and uniformed as to
passing events and past history.
The other day it was published in the
newspapers hat a great syndicate
composed of banking houses in New
York and London" had combined or
were planning "to control the entire
lumber business of North Carolina
Think of it, please. The details show
ed that seven companies own already
in North Carolina timber lands that
were equal to 1000, 900, 900 feet of lum-
Der, and controlling about six hundred
miles of railroad. Their saw mill ca
pacity is 800, 900 feet of lumber a day;
and they ave large planning mills and
box factories. They sell about 80 per
cent of all the North Carolina pine dis
tributed, the total output being about
600, O00, 900 feet a year" The tangible
assets" of the seven companies are
estimated at s23, 600. 900, and it is pro-
posed to capitalize them at s2S, DOC. 900,
upon which it is expected. h a divi-
dends can be earne through the econ
omics of consolidation"
If our people would take in that
statement-the plan of a gigantic trust
they might see what such sweeping
control in the end meant to North
Carolina and what it meant to men of
great capital living elsewhere. Look
at the contemplated profits. The Char
lesion News and Courier sees the mag
nitude of the proposed combine and the.
contemplated results, and most point
eddy says:
TT is a very promising scheme for
those who are working it. and should be
timber areas they control were bought
cheap, and the market value. of the
lumber derived from it is advancing
every day with the growing demand
and. increasing supply. The syndicate
has a good thing in sight and in hand,
and should be, and doubtless will be,
able to make millions of dollars in pro-
fits out of the development by means
of axe and saw of the forests it has so
easily acquired. With a saw mill ca
pacity of so, 900, 900 feet of lumber a year
it will maxi short work of the trees,
of course, and a few years later North
for it's own needs, and paying we'll for
all it gets. But that is a small matter
to them it appears Inc their neighbors
need not worry on their account-eS-
pecially as their neighbors are in the
same general position, and will need
their w breath for their own con-
ISOLATION when regrets and sympathy
on the subject fall due"