NAVAL STORES: THE FORESTS

CARL E. OSTROM, JOHN W. SQUIRES.

The naval stores belt extends across the Coastal Plain from the Savannah River to the Mississippi. It is a favored section for growing forest crops. Each acre of pineland can produce wood products, gum naval stores, and forage. Although the soils in most of the area are relatively poor for field crops, the long growing season insures growth of trees. The level topography makes almost every acre of dry land accessible for the easy removal of products. Tree planting is cheaper and easier than elsewhere in the country.

Forests occupy nearly three-fourths of the land area in the belt. Forest activities dominate the lives of scores of counties and towns, especially in the continuous forest areas of the "flat-woods," or lower Coastal Plain near the coast. Rail and road traffic runs heavily to pulpwood, logs, poles, gum barrels, rosin drums, and stump wood. Agricultural crops mostly are of minor importance. A large proportion of the rural people work in the woods, and get much of their fuel and meat from them.

People in the area are especially aware of the importance of forests to the future of the South. Residents who have watched slash pine stands or plantations spring up under protection are convinced of the importance of pine forests to the future of their communities. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that these pine forests are producing less than half as much as they could. It is obvious that doubling the size of the forest industries is the biggest thing that could happen in sections where forests already provide the greatest source of income.

The first steps in doubling the forest production in the naval stores belt are the rather elementary ones of fire protection and tree planting. The size of that task is shown in figures for Florida, which contains half of the 44 million acres of forest land in the naval stores belt. In Florida, one-half of the land is still without fire protection and some 3 million acres are in need of planting. Fire protection and stocking are somewhat better in the naval stores section of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Forest management in the region is of great complexity. The forester does not merely harvest ripe trees; he maintains the flow of a wide variety of products naval stores, pulpwood, ties, logs, poles, piling, cattle. For localized areas in the southern pine region, particularly in the heavy rough of Florida, to get protection he usually must burn the underbrush every few years, and the burning, turpentining, timber cutting, and grazing all must be scheduled as to time and location so that the owner will realize the maximum net income from his forest property.

FOREST MANAGEMENT in the area is still dominated by naval stores but less than before. The first efforts at turpentining second-growth trees several decades ago were often ruinous. A description of an operation in 1911 says that trees as small as 5 inches in diameter were turpentined, as many "faces" were placed on each tree as the space would allow and the faces were started high enough to avoid any bending over, and the wounds or "streaks" were an inch in depth and height. After 5 years about half the trees were dead. The timber was cut and the area was abandoned.

Foresters and leaders of the naval stores industry, seriously alarmed over the threat to future timber supplies caused by the premature and careless turpentining, in 1924 sent a commission to France and Spain to study the methods used there.

This constructive attitude and technical improvements developed by early research workers brought considerable progress in conservation. Substitution of the cup for the "box" chopped in the base of the tree reduced windthrow and damage to the trees by surface fires. It also reduced waste of gum and improved its quality. Conversion of the industry to more conservative chipping practices gave higher sustained production of gum, lowered mortality and windthrow, and increased the working life of the surviving trees. The practices were demonstrated on a large scale in national forests in Florida, where provisions written into the leases required producers to use methods that reduced damage to the trees and also gave the highest yields of gum over a period of several years.

The Naval Stores Conservation Program established in 1936 provided for a conservation payment per face to producers who meet the standards of good practice established by foresters and representatives of the industry. It has been an effective instrument for the introduction of improved methods of turpentining, among them a provision to prohibit tapping of trees under 9 inches. Now only a small fraction of all trees tapped are smaller than the recommended size.

The improvements in woods practice went a long way toward remedying unnecessary wastefulness and destruction of individual trees. But one improvement only paves the way for others. There remain at least two major opportunities for improvement in turpentining practices raising the low output per man in harvesting of crude gum and better integration of turpentining with timber production through systems of selective cupping in place of the diameter-limit system.

The output per man is considerably less than it was a century ago. In today's scattered stands, which average about 20 or 30 working trees to the acre, the turpentine laborer spends nearly two-thirds of his time walking from tree to tree and only one-third of his time in productive work. Each chipper now tends fewer faces than his predecessors did in the more fully stocked virgin forest. Furthermore, the average turpentined tree is only 10 or 11 inches in diameter; and the yield per tree is consequently much lower than from the larger, old-growth trees.

During the decades in which production per tree, per acre, and per man were declining in the turpentine woods, efficiency in the use of labor and introduction of mechanical devices were advancing steadily in the industries that compete with naval stores for markets and manpower. Those industries captured more and more of the gum naval stores market. Gum naval stores producers were unable to keep enough workers in the woods to meet production goals during the war and the industry may continue to lose ground in the postwar competition unless improvements in technique and equipment are successful in raising the efficiency of production. Since most of the labor is expended in producing raw gum in the woods and little is needed in processing it, more efficient methods of gum extraction and harvesting are obviously needed. For example, it is necessary in the traditional methods of turpentining to visit each tree 40 times a season to produce a yield of 8 or 9 pounds of crude gum or oleoresin.

Recent research has centered on several improvements that give promise of correcting as rapidly as possible the inefficiency of gum harvesting.

APPLICATION OF ACID to the streak to stimulate the flow of gum is the most promising new technique that has been developed since the introduction of the cup several decades ago. Experiments at the Lake City Branch of the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station have demonstrated that streaks sprayed with sulfuric acid yield 50 to 100 percent more gum than untreated streaks.

Treatment with sulfuric acid also extends the normal period of gum flow after chipping. As a result, the streaks chipped every 2 weeks and sprayed with acid produce as much gum per season as untreated streaks applied at the usual weekly interval. Although the additional work of spraying acid slows down the chipper to about 90 percent of his usual speed, the longer chipping interval permits him to work up to 80 percent more timber with no sacrifice in yield per tree. In that way a chipper can increase his production for the season by 80 percent. If the interval of chipping and acid treatment is increased to 3 weeks, the yield per tree is somewhat less, but the greater number of trees that are worked under this system enables a chipper approximately to double his output of gum for the year.

Chemical stimulation may also help to save a portion of the butt log for timber production. Doubling the customary chipping interval and applying acid provides approximately normal annual gum yields while proceeding only a little more than one-half as high up the tree. Or, in trees designated for thinning or harvest cutting, the usual total yield for the normal 5- or 6-year life of a face can be obtained in a shorter period of years by chipping at the customary interval but applying acid in addition. Although sulfuric acid has a greater effect on prolongation of gum flow than any chemical that has yet been tried, it is corrosive and must be handled with caution. Research men are bending every effort to find a gum-flow stimulant that will be nearly as easy to handle as water.

A NEW SYSTEM OF CHIPPING involves cutting to the usual height of one-half inch but only to the depth of the outer surface of the wood. If acid is applied, the method gives just as much gum as does application of acid with the traditional method of chipping one-half inch into the wood. The new technique of "bark chipping" is now in its fifth year of use by selected cooperators in the industry. It requires less physical effort than the standard method, is easier to teach to new workers, and leaves the butt of the tree in better condition for utilization. The spread of this new method depends on the acceptance of chemical stimulation, for, without application of acid, the yield is less than for the traditional chipping.

A new type of tool, or hack, has been developed for bark chipping. This new method of taking off only the bark provides an excellent opportunity for equipment research to develop a mechanical hack. Although there is always room for improving the equipment used in bark chipping and acid treatment, the major drawback to use of the new techniques by untrained laborers is the shortage of men to show them how. Leaders of the industry are receptive, but the solitary chipper in the turpentine woods is the man who must be trained in the new methods of work.

RESEARCH ON THE EQUIPMENT and mechanization has been started in response to a plea from industry. The mechanization of competing industries, such as the harvesting of pulpwood and of pine stumps for wood naval stores, has left the gum naval stores industry behind. Except for the introduction of bark chipping and acid treatment, the hand methods used in producing crude gulp been unchanged for decades.

The first step in the research was to meet the rather rigorous needs for a shatterproof, acid-proof, one-hand spray device for applying sulfuric acid. This need appears to have been met for the present by the introduction of a sprayer having a bottle made of rubberlike plastic. A simple squeeze on the bottle delivers a spray with a minimum of manipulation. Research has been started on a combined chipping and spraying device that will add further to the simplicity of acid treatment of the faces.

The development of strains of pine of superior gum-yielding capacity, grown in adequately stocked plantations, is expected to bring the greatest improvement in the long run in efficiency of gum harvesting. The parallel between the possibilities of such plantations of southern pines and existing plantations of superior strains of rubber and fruit trees is evident.