It has been far too rare to harvest commercially since the 1950s, but it has a beautiful, yellow-coloured, close-grained wood. The timber is lightweight, hard, strong and highly durable. In the 19th century, the tree was harvested for wood that was used as fence posts, shingles, cabinets, Christmas trees, firewood, and as a fuel for riverboats on the Apalachicola River. Fences made of this wood in the 1910s were still good in the 1970s. In the 1830s it was locally abundant enough for the trees to be harvested to be sawn into planks, which were much used in the construction of the village of Aspalaga Landing. In this era it was also recommended as making excellent posts for fencing, not being liable to attack by insects. When the trunks are damaged, the trees yield a small quantity of pasty, viscous, blood-red turpentine, which can be dissolved in alcohol, but has a very powerful and unpleasant odour. The tree is well-represented in cultivation, and is widely planted outside of its native range as an ornamental, and is found in private gardens, arboreta and botanical gardens. It was first imported to grow in Europe in 1840. Large trees were to be found in Germany by the 1860s. It is tolerably hardy, but grows very slowly in Britain, and as such was only recommended for collectors. It has occasionally been planted as a landscape tree around Tallahassee, and one such specimen in Lee, Florida has achieved . Some large specimens are grown elsewhere in botanical gardens. The champion tree of the species is in a private garden in Norlina, North Carolina, having a height of , a trunk diameter of dbh and a canopy width of in 1996. It has been said to endure winter temperatures of in North Carolina without much problem. Cuttings of "Torreya" shoot-tips often show fungal contamination. Experimental studies with weekly sprayed applications of a combinations of systemic fungicides, such as thiophanate-methyl combined with zinc and Maneb or thiabendazole, were able to eliminate the fungi from stock plants after four weeks, although these preparations were not US government approved as of 1987. Tissue culture methods of propagation were being investigated as of 1987. The first person to notice that the trees were dying was the forester L. T. Nieland in 1938, although he never wrote a formal paper about it.