A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 551 



along stream bottoms furnishes a valuable feed for hogs when 

 available. Hogs relish the seedlings and the spongy root bark of 

 longleaf pines, especially in early spring, when the mast becomes 

 scarce, or when they are driven out of the bottoms by high water. 

 They often destroy whole crops of seedlings by rooting them up in 

 their search for food. Longleaf seedlings several years old and 

 sometimes up to 6 feet in height may be killed. Considerable damage 

 may be done even to larger trees by removal of the outer layers of 

 bark from the lateral roots. The ranging of hogs under adequate 

 control can make good use of the forest range during a comparatively 

 long season without serious damage, but wild hogs in large numbers 

 ranging continuously over the forest do not fit into a forward-looking 

 plan for proper management of the longleaf pine forests. 



The progress in development of improved pastures and forage crops 

 already effected on farm lands by the Department of Agriculture in 

 cooperation with State agricultural experiment stations and extension 

 services is considerable, as shown by the ^number of publications 

 available on these subjects. The coordination of forest-range 

 grazing with these improved pastures and with supplemental feeding 

 presents an important problem in the South. 



In the Pine Belt, for example, the main forest range forage plants 

 make their best growth and are eaten most readily during the spring 

 and early summer. The graphs accompanying Greene's article in 

 the Proceedings of the Eleventh Southern Forestry Congress indicate 

 that steers usually make rapid gains in weight on forest pasture in 

 southern Mississippi from early April through June and part of July, 

 but gain very slowly or even lose weight during the remainder of the 

 year. A number of forage plants used in improved pastures, such as 

 carpet grass, Bermuda grass, and lespedeza furnish good grazing 

 until in October. While it is true that these pastures can be utilized 

 from any time after March or April, the good gains indicated by 

 Greene as possible on forest ranges through July might make it 

 advisable to remove livestock from the forests in late summer and 

 place them on supplemental pastures saved for that purpose. Some 

 stockmen are finding it advantageous to have fields of Abruzzi rye, 

 Italian ryegrass, or winter oats and legumes such as burr and crimson 

 clovers and vetch to use for winter grazing. Where small cultivated 

 areas within the forest can be used for production of these pasture 

 plants and opened for grazing during the period it is desired to use 

 them, livestock might be grazed year-long within the forest. 



The 2,700,000 acres of timbered land grazed within the national 

 forests of the South constitute areas, even though comparatively 

 small, where regulated management of the forest-range resource 

 can be developed and demonstrated for those types of which they 

 are representative. 



However, with 98 percent of the forest land in the South held in 

 private ownership and with much of the area used for grazing by 

 other than the owners of the land the problem of obtaining the 

 application of more desirable practices is largely one of education. 

 Much intensive study will be needed to develop the most desirable 

 management and effective coordination of timber growing, grazing, 

 and other uses of forest lands. 



168342 33 vol. 1 36 



