Possibilities of a Second Cut 21 



of the public on questions of public policy secures equitable tax 

 laws, which will prevent unjust burdens of taxation on growing 

 timber. 



The forest itself is well adapted to continuous production. The 

 unlogged portions present a complete series of age classes, which 

 would enable the inauguration and perpetual maintenance of an 

 annual cut. On the 9,000 acres studied there was of overmature 

 or decadent timber, 1,890 acres, or 21 per cent; large sound, 

 mature timber, 2,070 acres, or 23 per cent; small, merchantable 

 timber, 12 inches and over in diameter, 1,710 acres, or 19 per cent; 

 and of immature growing timber, poles and saplings, 2,880 acres, 

 or 32 per cent ; cleared farmland, 450 acres, or 5 per cent. 



To a greater or less degree this proportion would hold good 

 on most of the timberlands studied, although the percentage of 

 overmature and large timber is greater in Louisiana. 



Because of the large investment in mills and transportation, 

 under present conditions, all that can be expected is a well-directed 

 effort to obtain growth on the younger timber which is now large 

 enough to cut or will become so inside of twenty years. At the 

 end of that time, with all mature timber cut, it would be no longer 

 possible to cut 150 feet b.m. per year and even if the reproduc- 

 tion of seedlings had been secured and the small pole timber left 

 unharmed, the possible output from 100,000 acres would be very 

 small for the succeeding thirty to forty years. If fires are per- 

 mitted to run through the slash promiscuously and in the hottest 

 weather, as is now the case, much of this cut-over land will 

 be virtually devoid of any pine growth for a century, unless 

 artificially restocked. 



SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS 



The measures necessary to secure a second cut are recommended 

 as being inexpensive and practical. 



The measures necessary to secure reproduction and protection 

 of seedlings would involve a slightly increased expense, would 

 promise no immediate financial return, but would preserve the 

 productiveness of the soil by insuring a timber crop on land not 

 farmed, and might prove ultimately of great financial value to the 

 land owners when they come to sell these lands. These measures can 

 be urged only as a matter of far-reaching public policy. If timber 

 owners believe that a second growth of seedling pine will be of great 

 benefit to the community and state, it is in their power to secure 

 it on their own lands now at less expense than at any future time or 



