A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 957 



HARDWOOD FORESTS OF THE CENTRAL STATES 



(Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia) 



PRESENT CONDITIONS AND MANAGEMENT POLICIES 



The Central States are primarily a hardwood region, although at 

 the higher altitudes certain conifers appear in mixture with hardwood 

 species. The States of the Ohio Valley in particular were originally 

 clothed with magnificent forests of valuable hardwoods such as oak, 

 black walnut, yellow poplar, and ash. As a large part of the land 

 that was occupied by these forests is valuable for agriculture, much 

 of the area was cleared by early settlers for that purpose. 



At the present time it is estimated that the region has 63,477,000 

 acres of privately owned forest including 5,110,000 acres rated as 

 poor to nonrestocking, 12,078,000 acres rated as fair to satisfactory 

 stocking, 25,368,000 acres of cordwood areas, and only 20,921,000 

 acres of saw-timber areas. There are 32,158,000 acres of farm wood- 

 land and 31,319,000 acres in other types of private ownership. (See 

 table 1.) 



EXTENT TO WHICH FORESTRY IS BEING PRACTICED 



In the Central States there are three classes of private owners having 

 somewhat different interests in their forest properties, with the con- 

 sequence that their reasons for practicing forestry differ to a con- 

 siderable degree. First, there is the farm-woodland owner, whose 

 forest holdings are so intimately associated with farm operations 

 that they can not readily be segregated from farm areas. This 

 class of holding will be discussed later. Second, there is a large 

 class of owners who are not farmers but who have other reasons for 

 holding land than timber production. In this region mining (princi- 

 pally coal) is an important industry. Areas owned as mining property 

 within the region are estimated as follows (28) : 



Acres Acres 



Ohio 500,000 



Indiana 450, 000 



Illinois 700,000 



Missouri 650, 000 



Total 2,300,000 



Iowa 0) 



A small number of owners of mining property have realized that 

 their surface areas may as well be producing returns and have con- 

 sequently initiated improved forestry practices. An added reason 

 for the practice of forestry by these owners is that large quantities 

 of mining timbers and other forest products are required in their 

 own operations. Unfortunately the area on which improved forestry 

 practice has been put into effect as a result of these considerations is 

 not large. 



The third class of forest owners are those holding timberland for 

 the major purpose of obtaining saw logs or other forest products 

 from the land. This category includes a number of pulp companies 

 and sawmill owners as well as owners of a large acreage not connected 

 with manufacturing enterprises. A small portion of the land owned 

 by this class is being placed under continuous-yield management. 

 Prevailingly, however, when any of this land is cut over it is cut so 



i No data, 



