Forestry on Large Ownerships in the South 



283 



Several of the pulp companies are 

 taking steps to bring all their acreage 

 into full production. A new practice is 

 to rid their lands of worthless trees by 

 girdling in order to permit good young 

 trees to grow. The process, which costs 

 generally from $1 to $5 an acre, is less 

 expensive than planting an equal area. 

 The industry planted 19 million trees 

 on fee lands in 1947-48, and furnished 

 7 million seedlings free to growers of 

 pulpwood. Many companies are plant- 

 ing their idle lands as fast as seedlings 

 can be grown in their own or in State 

 nurseries. An example is the Gaylord 

 Container Corp., which has more than 

 50,000 acres in plantations. 



The pulp industry also encourages 

 other private owners to put their forest 

 lands under good management. For ex- 

 ample, the Southern Kraft Division of 

 the International Paper Co. employs 

 in the South many foresters at the pres- 

 ent time, some of whom supervise the 

 cutting and forest-improvement opera- 

 tions on company lands, while the 

 others assist private owners from whom 

 the company buys pulpwood. 



The Southern Pulpwood Conserva- 

 tion Association, whose membership 

 includes the leading pulp companies of 

 the South, carries on a campaign to 

 promote good forest practice by its 

 member mills and by the owners from 

 whom the industry buys wood. The 

 association employs three foresters to 

 advise and assist pulpwood contractors 

 and small-woodland owners in better 

 cutting practices. Member mills now 

 employ 18 foresters to promote better 

 practices in their own territory. 



The heavy demand for wood has 

 worked in two ways. The favorable 

 market for pulpwood, small sawlogs, 

 and other small products has shortened 

 the period an owner must wait for his 

 returns and created a market for small 

 trees. On the other hand, the market 

 for such small material has led many 

 owners to cut far more heavily than 

 before. Where the owner does not cut 

 conservatively, the net result is to re- 

 duce his over-all return and to reduce 

 the total volume of wood products. 



LARGE SAWMILL HOLDINGS are often 

 under conservative forest management. 

 About 90 percent of the holdings are 

 under organized protection from forest 

 fire and about one-half are managed 

 according to good or better cutting 

 practices. The Urania Lumber Co., 

 which in the early 1900 J s pioneered in 

 the practice of forestry, has succeeded 

 so well in its management that its mill, 

 instead of cutting out as did many of its 

 contemporaries, must be materially en- 

 larged to harvest its current annual 

 growth. Other examples from all over 

 the South could be cited; altogether, 

 some 8 million acres of forest lands in 

 sawmill ownership were reported as 

 under good or better management in 

 1945; on several million acres more, 

 practices have improved since 1945. 



In the Delta hardwoods the Ander- 

 son Tully Lumber Company of Mem- 

 phis owns more than 200,000 acres on 

 which good forestry is being practiced. 

 The company is looking to sustained 

 operation. 



But the sawmill industry as a whole 

 is not so well off. On one-half of the 

 sawmill ownership in 1945 cutting 

 practice was fair or poor an inade- 

 quate stand, or perhaps only seedlings 

 and seed trees were left. The sawmill 

 industry draws on the entire South for 

 its timber. The South was obliged to 

 cut 24.9 percent more timber of saw- 

 log size in 1944 than it grew in that 

 year. Standing saw-timber resources 

 have been declining for many years. 

 The sawmill industry and other indus- 

 tries that use trees 9 inches in diameter 

 and larger at 4J/2 feet from the ground 

 face a situation of declining timber 

 supplies. Greater progress than we 

 have thus far made is necessary if we 

 are to continue to hold the industry on 

 its present scale. 



The naval stores industry likewise is 

 making progress in the practice of bet- 

 ter forest management. Seventy-nine 

 percent of the industry, based on num- 

 ber of working faces, is cooperating 

 under the Naval Stores Conservation 

 Program, which requires conservative 

 chipping practices. Many operators 



