The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1903-03-11
ECONOMY IN TREE PRODUCTS.
Il viii Save Millions annually to
The South.
soAE Progress lLREADY MADE
In The Production OF Commercial
Articles From SaWdust, Slabs,
Rough Ends, Etc.

SNl LsStSS W. OI
Rough Ends, Etc.
Baltimore, March 5.-Correspon-
dence of the Manufacturers Record
reveals an ever-increasing interest in
plans for the economic utilization OF
what has long been regarded as the
waste of the lumber trade. Some ad-
vance has already been made in the
treatment of sawdust, slabs, rough
ends, etc., for the production Of COM
mercial articles, and several plants are
now in successful operation, and others
are contemplated, for handling fat
lightwood found in limbs, the upper
part of the trunk and the stumps and
roots of Southern pines, by the pro-
cess known as destructive distillation,
which produces from cord OF fat
lightwood between twenty and thirty
gallons of spirits of turpentine, besides
tar and number of oils containing
valuable medicinal and wood-preserv-
ing qualities. This industry of saving
is in the infancy, and in the mean
time another saving is likely to be
effected through the encouragement
by the United States Government OF
turpentine operations designed to obvl-
ate the present wasteful and destruc-
tive system of boxing the trees, the
method being that devised under Gov
ernment auspices by DR.. Charles Il.
Herty, of Georgia. The need for such
a reform moment in turpentine opera
tions is shown by official igures. In
the season of 1902 the production of
spirits of turpentine by the old system
of boxing amounted to 900, 900 barrels,
valued at s13, 600, 600, and the produc-
tion of rosin was 100, 600 barrels,
valued at 81, 2O0,O 900, making the total
value of the crop SIT, 400, 600. Had
the new method been applied to the
same area of timber, it is estimated
that the production of spirits OF tur-
pentine would have been l,05o,0 90 bar
rels. valued at S23, 100, 900, and of rosin
4, ,e75, 600 barrels, valued at 81, $50, 600,
the total product being valued at
$50, 450, 900. Here is shown q loss to
the Southern naval stores industry of
S13, 600, coo in one year, to say nothing
of the damage wrought by the old
method to the forests.
A writer in the Manufacturers
Record points out, that the price at
which the long leaf pine forests of
the South are now held makes 1t
difficult for man Of small means to
secure location for the manufacture
of turpentine and rosin. The usual
method of extracting the gum by box
ing the tree is considered by mill men
damaging to the forests for the rea-
son that the box weakens the tree, so
that the wind can blow it down east
ly, and that if fire should unfort-
unately get into the woods the tree
will burn at the box on account of
the turpentine to such an extent as
to cause the tree to die. The new
process, which has been given an i'm
petus by the National Bureau of
Forestry, will serve in some degree,
the correspondent notes, to diminish
the possibility of such injuries to the
forests. Considerable capital is being
invested in pottery works to make
cups for turpentine producers to use
to catch the gum, instead of boxing
the trees, and if the operators who
work on large scale find that the
system is all that is claimed for it,
there is no doubt that millions Of dol
lars will be added to- the income from
the turpentine industry in the long
I leaf pine forests of the South and will
prolong the life of those forests.
In the meantime activity is main
tained IN the lumber industry in the
South, and New Orleans, rapidly be-
coming the centre of the yellow pine
industry, reflects the activity at all
the mill points and adjacent to it.
A. .Gulfport, Miss, and other Gulf
ports shipments of lumber are great
er than at any time last year, large
cargoes going to the United Kingdom
and the Continent, to Mexico, to
Cuba and other ports. At Savannah
shippers for the coastwise business
have all the trade that they can take
care of, and at Jacksonville there is a
most pronounced demand from North
ern and Eastern sources and from West
India ports, and the lumbermen there
look forward to an exceedingly active
trade during the next few years, based
upon the unusual development of
valuable tributary timber properties.
Hundreds of carloads of lumber are
in the yards at Memphis already book
ed for Europe, but because of the
congestion of the railroads the hand
lers of export lumber have decided to
send it down the river by barges to
New Orleans. It is claimed that, al
though it will take longer time to
send the lumber by water than by rail,
it will get started so much the sooner
and will reach it's detination much
earlier than if it waits for the railroad
congestion to be overcome.