A FOREST POLICY FOR LOUISIANA 511 



tions further south came into full swing; the shortleaf, loblolly, and 

 hardwood stumps are easily disposed of. All of these factors, together 

 with some others, have produced a rather early development of farming 

 and stock-raising. These in turn have resulted in a wide distribution 

 of farms, and the building of numerous roads, which break up the 

 region into small units and keep down forest fires. Cutting was not 

 close and left many seed trees. Second-growth timber is therefore 

 plentiful, and in many cases is already being cut by small mills. With 

 but lo per cent of non-agricultural soils, this region demands of the 

 State forestry organizations little beyond advice on farm woodlands 

 and a certain amount of help in fire protection. This is for the region 

 as a whole, where the non-agricultural land, so classed because of to- 

 pography for the most part, is scattered through the better land in small 

 units. There are probably a few parishes where broader areas of very 

 rough land prescribe a different forest policy similar to that for the 

 longleaf-pine region. 



It is just possible that with the gradual progress of education in for- 

 est values a few large owners in this region will be encouraged by the 

 tax-abatement feature of the Louisiana forest law to undertake refor- 

 estation or continuous forest production. At present but two owners, 

 and those closely associated, have taken advantage of the very liberal 

 statute which lowers the tax assessment to $i an acre for a period of 

 thirty to forty years on land not now assessed at more than $5, and 

 which the owner undertakes, by contract with the Department of Con- 

 servation, to reforest with valuable timber trees. The tracts in ques- 

 tion are in the longleaf-pine region, and the owner of the main tract is 

 able to anticipate continuous operation of his mill by reason of posses- 

 sion of a fifteen years' supply of virgin longleaf, several old fields 

 stocked with loblolly and shortleaf pine now thirty or forty years old, 

 and a large acreage of mixed pine land cut over fifteen to twenty years 

 ago, when only the larger timber was utilized and the remainder — 

 seven or eight trees to the acre — were left to put on diameter rapidly 

 and to scale several thousand feet per acre by the time cutting again 

 reaches them. Although there is much second-growth pine in the short- 

 leaf-pine region, this combination of circumstances is little likely to be 

 met with either in that region or elsewhere in the State (is there any 

 other instance, even in the United States, where a lumber or pulp 

 company owns a significant amount of young timber or middle-age 

 classes?), and without them few private land-owners are likely to 

 undertake forestry on a considerable scale. Nevertheless, the possi- 



