The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-07-08
Discovery that is Worth
Millions to Carolina.
THE SWAMP GUM TREE
Grows in Immense Numbers in the
Eastern Section. Was Heretofore
Useless, but by an Ingenious
Process is Source OF Great
Profit and Wealth.

Mr. William Dunn, of New Bern,
who has been attending the meetings
of the Finance Committee of the State
Board of Agriculture and A. and NJ.
College talks interestingly of his
city, and announces some entertaining
news. There is soon to be estab-
lished in New Bern, he said, a staVe
factory, by the North Carolina Stave
Company, a concern recently charter
ed. This concern has big and per-
mancnt contract with the sugar re-
finery tristan immense combine
to make slaves for it, furnishing two
car loads of sugar barrel slaves per
day. These slaves will be made Of
wood that has never before been
utilized. the gum tree, which grows In
great numbers throughout all East
ern Carolina. and which has hereto
fore been considered as being abso-
lutely useless and worthless. 1t never
before brought any value, and only
since the spruce and white pine, from
which these slaves have been made,
began to grow scarce in the forests OF
Maine and other New England States,
have efforts been made to find another
adaptable and available kind of wood.
immense size, frequently as large as
the oak, in the Southern swamps from
Virginia to Florida, and especially In
North Carolina, and experiments were
begun with il. The fibre of the gum
tree was discovered to have a cross
grain, instead Of running straight, and
when dried it WarpS and twists, and
for this reason it was of no value
for any purpose. But process was
discovered by the manager of the
company at New Bern, by which the
fibre is broken down, the twist or
warp taken out: and the wood is then
of the best quality for barrel slaves.
The process has been demonstrated
to be a success, and it means the
utilization of vast tracts of swamp
lands i'm North Carolina, and the
bringing of millions of dollars to this
State. Half dozen manufactures or
the kind being constructed could not
exhaust the gum trees in the Eastern
Carolina swamps, as they grow mirac-
ulously East.
The sugar stave factory's success
presents the possibility of other like
enterprises, these being oil barrel,
pork barrel and eur barrel slaves,
etc. There arc, with tn eaid of the
new drying process, a great many
other uses that might be made of the
sum trco.
Pot"tO Crop Lost.
Mr.. Dunn said that the entire po-
t3to crop of the New Bern section
was lost and this means that the
farmers there have lost a great many
thousands of dollars-the probable
extent of the loss being impossible to
estimate. as thousands of acres of po-
tatoes were left to rot in the ground
undug. At the beginning of the sea-
son a barrel of potatoes would
usually bring $1.00, but a few days
ago they brought only 40 cents per
barrel, on the wharves at New Bern
To illustrate the tremendous loss sus-
tanned in the tobacco crop, Mr.. Dunn
said that the barrel alone cost 20
cents: the digging 10 cents and the
freight to New Bern Is cents per
barrel, costing Is cents per barrel
and the loss on each barrel was fivS
cents, not including the cost of pre-
pairing the soil and planting.
Oriental Railroad.
The opening of the railroad to
Oriental has been postponed indefin-
itely. There seems to have been not
enough working capital to complete
the road at once, and the people re-
gret the delay, but it would not be
prevented by the owner and builder of
the road.