A DREAM COME TRUE: MARYLAND LOBLOLLY FIXE TO 

 THE FRONT 



By Joshua A. Cope 

 Assistant State Forester of Maryland 



We foresters, at least those of us who are not too far removed in 

 point of time or interest from the forest schools, love to think about 

 complete stocking, financial rotations, reproduction cuttings, and other 

 terms in the vocabulary of forest management technique whenever 

 we see an even aged stand of conifers. But deep down we realize that 

 we can't put those thoughts actually into commercial practice until lum- 

 ber prices advance and utilization becomes more complete. 



It was a surprise, then, the other day, to run across an instance of 

 complete utilization on a commercial scale that made forest management 

 not a dream but an actuality in 1921 and the thrill received was so 

 genuine that it seemed selfish not to let others share in the possibilities 

 that the following facts suggest. 



Those of you to whom the words "Eastern Shore"' call up only 

 sweet potatoes, cantaloupes, and banquet bivalves, I would remind 

 that this same peninsula between the Delaware and Chesapeake is the 

 home of the loblolly pine — a worthy rival of the white pine and slash 

 pine for fast growing honors on the Atlantic Coast. Salisbury, jMary- 

 land, a town of about 7,500 population, is situated on the main line 

 of the railroad tapping this peninsula and is the center of the wood- 

 using industries that avail themselves of this fast-growing species for 

 the manufacture of lumber, box shooks, barrel staves, strawberry and 

 cantaloupe crates, as well as veneered containers of all descriptions. 



One of the progressive lumbermen of the town had acquired before 

 the late war a 900-acre farm, chiefly covered with mature loblolly pine 

 in mixture with inferior hardwoods such as red maple, black and red 

 gum, and some oak, both white and black. The wooded portion 

 averaged about 14 thousand feet to the acre. This tract is located 6 

 miles from Salisbury, over roads shelled two-thirds of the way and the 

 rest sandy. The lay of the land being favorable for agriculture, and 

 another shipping point being only 2 miles distant, it did not seem wise 

 to hold this timber any longer because the land, if cleared, would bring 

 $75 per acre for farm purposes. 



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