OF SOUTHWESTERN MISSISSIPPI. 93 



the railroad. Cord wood sells at about $1.25 per cord 

 where there is demand for it. 



Years ago most of the school lands were leased and 

 the lessees disposed of the standing timber. The schools 

 of the county have thereby been deprived of a good source 

 of revenue which would now be coming in from these pine 

 lands. 



Marion County {west of Pearl River). — Western Marion 

 County, between Pike County and the Pearl River, is 

 one of the few areas in Mississippi which still remains 

 heavily timbered. It is a continuation of the longleaf 

 region of eastern Pike County not yet lumbered, and con- 

 sists of longleaf upland and narrow intervening creek bot- 

 toms covered ^^ith hardwoods, mostly of second growth. 

 Considerable areas of bottom-lands skirt the Pearl River, 

 although along some portions of it the banks are more or 

 less precipitous. 



There are approximately 63,000 acres of cleared land 

 and 137,500 acres of uncleared land in this county west 

 of the Pearl River. Of the uncleared area probably 60 

 per cent consists of merchantable timber, mostly longleaf 

 pine. It is estimated that there are only 800 to 1,000 

 acres of true stump land in this area at the present time. 

 Many thousands of acres of pine land, however, have been 

 culled over in the past, and cannot now be classed as first 

 quality pine land. Extensive areas have been boxed for 

 turpentine, and the trees left to blow down or bum up, 

 because of the absence of ctny lumber industries to use 

 the boxed trees. There is comparatively little of the old 

 field pine type. 



This western portion of the county is largely a high, 

 dry plateau, extending eastward from McGee's Creek, in 

 Pike County, and falling off more or less abruptly to the 

 Pearl River bottom-lands. Lumbering has scarcely begun 

 over this longleaf plateau land. The timber is owned by 

 several lumber and realty companies which will eventually 

 log the land from the tram lines approaching from the 

 Illinois Central Railroad, and from the New Orleans Great 

 Northern Railroad, recently constructed northward from 



