The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-09-30
SawduSt from Numerous Mills
 is Being Utilized
BIG SUCCESS PROMISED
Lumhermen In Hattlesmurg Field Are Worried Over Car Shortage and Failures Are Predicted Un-
 less Relief Comes.
BY A. c. AYLEsWoRTH.

plant of the Llgnum Product company at Hattiesburg, erected at immense cost for the extracting of alcohol from s-wdust, shavngs and other refuse of the saw and blaming mills Is at last in shape for prae- teal operations, and in the course of two or three weeks wil commence continuous manufacture of alcohol at full capacity.
 The construction of this plant and the experimenting with the machinery have occupied nearly four years. Tho cost has perhaps fallen not far short of $5O0 ,99G But the result now seems to be practical plant, which will be in the field to supply the immense market that is expected to develop as soon as the high revenue charges shall be removed from that article of commerce, and at that price, in V'ew of the character of raw material used, that other plants will scarcely be abc to duplicate.
 Alcohol Has Already Been Made.
 That the Llgnum Product plant is practical success Is demonstrated by the fact that there are now in the store rooms, under guard of the gaugers and store- keepers of the revenue department of the federal government, some two hundred
  This quantity has been made in the past few days by way of testing the machinery, and is only fraction of what will he done when the plant is put to It's ca pacity.
 For the past six months the plant at Hattiesburg has been in the hands of the Warren company of New York, which makes a speciality of equipping distillef- ies The Lignum Product company, after deVoting some three years to the task of installing an entirely new and unique plant, got tired of the job, and turned 1t over to the Warren company, which undertook to put the factory in practical and perfect operation. The time alotted to the Warren company has about eX- pired and the result is a complete snc- cess A great deal of remodeling has been necessary. The plant was originally designed under the belief that machinery used in the manufacture of alcohol from beets potatoes and other vegetable sub stances would also apply in the extraction of alcohol from wood. The theory was all right, but in practical operation all the details would not work. For instance II was found that in the vessels for separat- ing the saccharine substance from the fiber, the refuse from the wood was so fine that it formed a solid substance that prevented percolation. Therefore the sep arators which were borrowed from the beet alcohol factories had to be discarded, and other separators specially designed for the wood plant had to be devised ana manufactured. Other changes of a Ike nature had to be made. and the result was delay that was tedious and costly, al- though it never discouraged the Pennsyl- vania gentlemen who compose the Lignum Product company
 Plant Not Yet Perfect.
 While the plant is now ready for practi- aAal. .la be assumed that 1t is perfect. The manu- facture of alcohol from sawdust in com mercial quantities has just had It's birth in this factory, and It is expected that like all other big Inventions 1t will un- dergo changes from time to time as prac- tcal working may demonstrate them 10 be necessary For instance, it Is already found that the fermenting apparatus pro- vided is doubly large enough to take care of the material furnished by the separat- Ing devices Therefore 1t will only be necessary to increase the separating appl- ances to remedy that defect. but at the same time the capacity of the plant will be doubled
 The plant will draw its material from the sawmills in this territory On full ca- pacitv the factory will consume about two carloads a day. Special cars for hauling the saw dust and shavings from the mills have been made for the company. They GXtfaOndln1fY equipped that the saw dust can be dropped directly into them from the chutes at the mill; they unload automatically. and as they dump their contents the same is car ried by rotary devices up into the distil- lery and into the place where it is re- qured for use. Thus the handling of the saw dust Is managed by machinery from the mill to the distillery, and comes to the alcohol factory at practically no cost ex- cept that of hauling it.
 Pacific Coast Interested. Since the success of this plant has been demonstrated 1t has transpired that a number of similar factories will be in- stalled at once on the Pacific coast. Re cently carload of ordinary blaming mill shavings was sent here all the way from the state of Washington, to be run through this dstillery to ascertain whether or not they would produce alco- ] hol of as good quality and in as large quantity as that extracted from the vel | low pine The result was altogether fa- vorable to the Washington specimens. l which were from the tree known as the l Washington fir.
 The plant here is equipped for making briouettes for fuel purposes out of the 1 wood fibre from which the saccharine ele- | ment llas been extracted, but this bri- ouette machinery has not been put in op-
 eratIon and it may be abandoned. for
 though the process is found to be alto gether feasible, it is doubted if the pro- duct would be marketable in a part of the country like this, which is not suffer ing from shortage of the ordinary fuels On the Pacific coast the briquettes will | be made a prominent feature of all the | factories established.
 Biq Plant to Be Equipped.
 The most important of the new lum- Der manufacturing enterprises recently sprung in Mississippi is that which has just been made public by w. s. F. Tatum l of this city, who is now receiving bids for mill and railroad machinery for the 1 opening of the largest plant in this part 1 of the country with the exception of the J. J. Newman properties. Mir, Tatum has just closed a quarter of million dollar l deal by which he comes into the full ownership of l6. 900 acres of virgin timber | land in Perry and Lamar counties. half | of which he owned before The tract runs right up 10 the corporate limits of Hattiesburg on the south. At Bonhomle. a Hattiesburg suburb. he already owns q | mill with several miles of tramway. This | mill ,Vill be put in operation at once. But the machinery Is old and out of date. and as rapidly a.i possible 1t will be replaced with new machinery throughout. The | tram road. ow a narrow guage. will be replaced with stanS. ' guage, using heavy | steel rails. Trobe for permanent use. | The line will extended some fifteen miles, 10 taI the furthest extremity of the tract.
 But the mott important part of the en- terrrise. SO far as Hattiesburg Is con- cerned. will be the construction of a raii-