University of Southern Mississippi - Southerner Yearbook (Hattiesburg, MS)

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lining tlgr Svtumpa---691' muah ilhhurtiun lglzmtz HEN five million or more acres of the Long Leaf Pine Region of South Mississippi lost their big trees, there remained a vast area of nothing but stumps-H useless, blotting the landscape, hindrances to cultivation to be removed only after much labor and a dead expense. Truly necessity is the mother of invention. Obstacles, as they were, in the way of the emigrant, stumps have now become a source of income to the owner: and the pine stump earns its right to existence by paying for its removal and netting a profit over and above its expenses. A process has been discovered by which turpentine and rosin can be extracted from the pinewood and already two mills known as Wood Reduction Plants, have been erected in Mississippi, one at Gulfport and one at Hattiesburg. The materials used are pine knots, pine limbs, stumps, and roots. These are brought to the plant by cars and weighed, then thrown from the cars into a large machine with steel knives making about eleven thousand revolutions per minute. These knives cut the wood into small chips, which are carried by a conveyor into a machine known as a shredder which reduces the chips to very small particles. These are conveyed into large retorts and steam is applied. This steam passes through large copper condensers and turpentine is extracted from the wood in about sixty minutes. The steam pressure is increased and a substance known as pine oil results, which is used for medicinal purposes. The wood is then treated by a solvent processg a heavy dark liquid is removed known as rosin liquid, which is refined and rosin is extracted therefrom. There is left a substance known as pulpg after this is treated it can be used by the paper mills in making a high grade paper, so nothing is wasted. After the turpentine is refined it is pumped into tank cars holding six to eight thousand gallons and the rosin is barrelled. These products are shipped tc markets in north- ern states and foreign countries. The machines are patented and the reduction process is very expensive. The plant manufacturing one hundred cords per day will require two hundred and fifty thousand dollars capital. It is only recently that chemists have been successful in perfecting a process that would refine rosin, but it is thought in the near future there will be a great number of these plants that will successfully convert the waste products of pine forests and cut-over lands into valuable products. A cord of rich top wood will yield about sixteen gallons of turpentine, one and a half gallons of rosin oil, and four hundred and fifty pounds of rosin. A cord of rich stump wood will yield about twenty-three gallons of turpentine, two and a half gallons of rosin oil, and about six hundred and fifty pounds of rosin. It is estimated that the cut-over lands have an average of about seven cords of wood per acre which would be worth to the land owner about four dollars per cord. The removal of the stumps from the land enables the farmers to use improved im- plements, to cultivate more land, and to make better crops. They realize enough money from the stumps to have the land cleared and to buy fertilizer to enrich the soil for crop growing. Thus we see that the wood reduction plant is a most valuable asset to the development of goiith Mississippi, and offers opportunity for profitable investment of many thousands of 0 ars. 20

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illlliaaizaimaia Svrrnnh' Cfrratvzt iixpnrt---Eumhrr BEU LA H KOC H HERE are more than one hundred and twenty different trees found in Mississippi. The most valuable for lumber are the long leaf pine, white oak, cotton wood, gums, hick- ory, ash, poplar, and cypress. Mississippi ranks third in the annual production of lum- ber in the United States. The lumber and timber products of the State increased in value from 951,920,335 in 1880 to 342,793,000 in 1909. In 1915 the estimated cut of timber for the State was 2,200,000,000 feet--1,850,000, 000 feet, or about 84 per cent, being Southern Yellow Pine. The principal hardwood areas of timber are found in the northern and western sec- tions of the State. The more plen- tiful kinds of hardwood that are cut in Mississippi are cypress for shinglesg oak for heading and staves, estimated at 30,000,000 feet annually, gums, 100,000,000 feet for veneers, and hickory 20,000,000 feet for making wheels and other parts of wagons, buggies, automobiles, and farm implements. Mississippi cuts over 325,000,000 feet of hard- wood timber yearly. A large num- ber of hardwood mills are found scattered over the northern half of the State, and Memphis has twenty- three mills largely supplied by Mis- sissippi timber. The largest hard- gourtes,-OfM,,,, wood mill in the world is claimed by Charleston in Tallahatchie County. It cuts 120,000 feet daily, or 40,- 000,000 feet in a year. The Company owns 74,000 acres of Delta timber lands, and owinlg to the selective method used in cutting the timber they expect to be running at a proit twen- ty years from now. About half of this timber is for home consumption and the other half 'is shipimied to Spain, France, England, Germany, Italy, and nearly all other countries ofthe wor . The southern portion of Mississippi has just reached the age in its geologic history where the soil is adapted to the growth of yellow pine. Millions of acres of virgin timber have been stripped, and at the present rate of consumption yellow pine will be extinct in thirty years, according to government reports. The yellow pine forests of Mississippi yield about 12,000 feet mill cut to the acre. Mills for the cutting of yellow pine are numbered by the dozen, Laurel alone having five immense plants, nearly all of which reach the million dol- lar limit in valuation. One mill at Hattiesburg has a capacity of 150,000,000 feet per year, and two companies at Laurel have capacities of 120,000,000 feet and 90,000,000 feet respec- tively. Laurel is reported to be the largest yellow pine shipping center in the world. Yellow pine is shipped all over the United States south of Minnesota and east of the Mississippi River. Under normal conditions these mills ship lumber, cross-ties, telephone poles, and naval stores to Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, the countries in South America, the Jamai- ca Islands, and the British Empire. The shipping points are Gulfport, Mobile, and New Or- leans, Gulfport ranking second in the United States in lumber exports. O. R. R. One of Mississippi's Logs 19

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A Iirnhurt nf the lgrllnm 1Hinr---Nuual Sturm HE United States furnishes for the world's use more naval stores than all other countries combined. The manufacture of these products is one of the oldest industries of our country. The early settlers of Virginia, North and South Carolina engaged in the primitive method of burning pine wood in pits made under the ground to extract tar. The extensive use of pitch and tar in the construction and maintenance of sailing vessels caused these products to be called Naval Stores, a term now applied to turpentine and rosin, which have taken the place of tar and pitch. Since 1849, this industry has gradually extended southward following the course of the Long Leaf Pine Belt. The southern half of Mississippi lies almost wholly in this belt. During the last few years the State has produced annually approximately 4,000,000 gallons of' turpentine and 400,000 barrels of rosin, most of which is shipped to other states and countries. The Government Report gives the following Hgures for Mississippi: Year Establishments People employed Capital Value of product 1904 124 3,036 598,000 2,366,000 1909 64 2,836 1,251,000 1,475,000 1915 1,475,000 However, the manager of a southern turpentine corporation reports that at present these products amount to over 32,000,000 The large decrease in the value of these products- from 1904 to 1909 was due to unfavorable market conditions and to destructive storms. The turpentine and rosin corporation at Biloxi does an annual business of iB175,000. The Newman Lumber Company of Hattiesburg on its timber holdings works from 20 to 30 crops per year, a crop consisting of 10,000 boxes or trees. In 1916 this company ran 20 crops producing a total of 85,455 barrels of rosin of 280 pounds each, commercial count, and 74,000- gallons of turpentine. The manufacture of turpentine and rosin nowadays is conducted generally on a turpentine farm consisting of a region of timbered lands, worked by the owner or leased by the operators for turpentine privileges. The lumber companies with large timber holdings do not lease to the private operators but work their own timber. They use the same crops. only two or three years and then move on to an alloted area of virgin timber leaving the trees already Worked for lumber. Under this method of operation, very few trees are lost, and the turpentine industry is made to last almost as long as the lumber industry. The old method of boxing caused a great waste of timber and turpentine, especially on account of forest fires. While there is danger of fires to the timber cupped according to present method, it is not so great as to box timber, since the cups are removed when the trees are abandoned, leaving faces of the trees as the only source of tire risk. It has been estimated that in Mississippi 3 to 10 billion board feet of timber have been lost by the boxing system of tagppiling the trees, which delays the growth and furnishes a ready location for the beginning o a re. Since the amount of long leaf pine timber available for turpentine operations in the South is constantly decreasing, and experiments on the western pines have proved that they produce as much turpentine as southern pines, it is reasonable to believe that the naval store indtliistry will finally drift to the Pacific slope where there are large tracks of virgin pine tim er. This industry is of great importance because these products are necessities. Turpen- tine is used in varnishes and paints, and is utilized as a solvent for rubber and as an illumi- nant when mixed with alcohol. It is used very extensively in printing cloth as it prevents the color from running together and penetrating the cloth. By far the greatest use of rosin is in the finishing of ships but it is also used in the manufacture of paper, soap, oil cloth, sealing wax, fly paper, linoleum, printing ink, material for roofing buildings, electric wire, and lubricating compounds. Turpentine and rosin, pure or mixed with other compounds, are- very extensively used for medicinal purposes. 21