State

By ED LO\G. JR. We Can Double Our Biggest Crop Half the actual and potential wood supply of IVortli Carolina is har¬ vested by fire. A forest fire, raging out of control, can be an awesome thing. One of tltc troubles with a forest fire, however, is that not enough peo¬ ple see it as it really is — a threat to their economy. A farmer leaves a burning pile of debris unattended while he looks after more important chores; a smoker flicks a match or cigarette with no regard for where it lands; a camper hurrying home from the woods fails to drown a campfire; a man with a grudge delib¬ erately drops a match into a pile of leaves. And up in flames goes the raw ma¬ terial for our state’s No. 3 industry — behind only tobacco and textiles in importance to North Carolina — an in¬ dustry that is completely dependent upon products of the forest for sur¬ vival. No farmer wants to produce half a crop; he docs everything in his power to see that his harvest is as close to the maximum as possible. No business can long operate at 50 per cent efficiency; its executives do their best to achieve a peak. The story, though, is not the same in our woodlands, which make up nearly 60 per cent of North Carolina’s total land area. We're operating our forests on a halfway basis. If we would keep the fire out. those wood¬ lands would grow about twice as much timber as they arc now producing. There is more to the picture than appears on the surface. More than timber sales profits arc lost when a fire speeds through the forest. Little trees to provide the timber so vitally needed in future years also die. A simple test in the woods illustrates that fact. A forester walking through the pines gives his kcycasc a fling; it hits a large tree trunk and drops into the ground cover. From that point, the forester paces off a square something more than six feet to each side. He says we can disregard the large pine and the two smaller ones which arc now hardly more than bushes with needles. Our search is for the pine trees we cannot see because of the cover. Stooping, he pushes aside a tuft of grass; behind it is a slender two and a half inch seedling with needles the color of freshly shelled green peas. And there’s another. And another. In all, there arc 13 hidden trees, each barely longer than a man’s finger. "Now," the forester says, "this six- foot square is one-thousandth of an acre. We have 1 3 pine trees, not count¬ ing those we could see. “That means approximately 13,000 pine seedlings cover the acre which surrounds our plot. If a fire came through here, it would kill a number of Juit о few yco n 090, the fiiit girl firc-wotchcr wot on the job in Posquotonk County. Todoy, 15 9irli ond women hold down thcic jobi in North Caroline's Forestry Division. This is obout 15 per cent of the watching personnel. Forester Cloridgc soys they perform their duties just os sotisfoctorily os men do. Below is Moelyn F. Gibbs, wotcher ot the Engelhard <Hyde County) tower. the bigger trees, but it would mean certain death for these tiny seedlings." The ease against carelessness, indif¬ ference and maliciousness in handling fire in the woods is made stronger by a look at North Carolina’s wood-using industries. More than 45 per cent of our manu¬ facturing establishments — 3.400 — arc wood-using plants. From them rolls a great variety of articles, furni¬ ture. lumber, pulp and paper, veneer, cooperage, flooring, railroad ties, poles, posts, shingles, excelsior and other products. Together they account for 12 per cent of the value of all products manu¬ factured in the state, or about three- quarters of a billion dollars. Workers who derive their income directly from North Carolina forest in¬ dustries number about 7S.000. over 17 per cent of all the people employed in the state. Their annual payroll comes to $243.000.000. Value of products, payrolls and money paid to farmers for their woods products arc only part of the value of the forests. Woodlands provide recrea¬ tion. too. Thousands of tourists each year visit North Carolina. In addition, more than 6S0.000 fishermen and 1 5 THE STATE. AUOUST 10. 19SV