FOREST CONDITIONS OF MISSISSIPPI. 47 



cents apiece and owners of pole timber have often netted 

 as much as S50 per acre by supplying this demand. It is 

 unfortunate that most of the cut-over lands and old fields 

 of this section, because of frequent burning, do not contain 

 a cover of young pines. 



Pike County is for the most part a gently rolling country 

 and lies entirely within the piney woods type. The eastern 

 half of the county still contains large areas of excellent 

 timber which is owned by a few large lumber companies. 

 Turpentining is practiced more extensively in Pike County 

 than in any of the other counties in southwestern Mississippi. 



Western Marion County still remains heavily timbered 

 and the timber is owned by several large lumber and 

 realty companies. The original extensive pine forests of 

 Lincoln County have been practically exhausted. About 

 half the land is classed as uncleared, but only about 18 per 

 cent of the uncleared land contains merchantable forest 

 cover, while the remainder is chiefly unproductive stump 

 land. 



In Copiah County practically all the pure longleaf pine 

 forest has been exploited. Most of the virgin timber is in 

 the southeastern townships. 



In Franklin County there is a great deal of extremely 

 rough land covered with longleaf pine and hardwood tim- 

 ber. Until the building of the Mississippi Central Railroad 

 there was very little lumbering in this county because of 

 the inaccessibility of the timber and the high expense of 

 logging it. Now, however, many mills are operated along 

 the line of the railroad, and large companies have been 

 buying all the available timber land. The narrow ridges 

 and very steep slopes will, for the most part, be always 

 'unfit for farm land. In these situations lumbering should 

 be so conducted as to insure the perpetuation of the forest. 

 Four or five thrifty seed trees of longleaf pine should be 

 left standing on each acre and every effort should be made 

 to keep fires from burning over the ground and destroying 

 young growth. 



In Amite County about one-half of the longleaf pine 

 uplands have been cut over and are now mostly stump 



