Rebuilding a Southern Forest 



estry on their own forties. He initiated 

 a plan to apply the principles of farm 

 (or small-scale) forestry on the scat- 

 tered Government tracts in his district, 

 utilizing local people and small-scale 

 operators for harvesting the timber. 



He formed an advisory committee 

 of leading citizens to help manage the 

 forest, so that it would be operated 

 smoothly and efficiently and with the 

 maximum benefits to the local econ- 

 omy. Members of the committee met 

 with the supervisors and Ranger Miller 

 to discuss the problems and work out 

 solutions. The program was effective. 



THE FIRST EFFORT to place the scat- 

 tered lands under intensive manage- 

 ment was made through small timber 

 sales to neighboring farmers. At once 

 the problem came up of financing the 

 farmers who did not have the money 

 to buy and operate the timber. Ordi- 

 narily, they are financed by a sawmill 

 or a larger operator, in which case 

 their log market is limited to that par- 

 ticular mill. But in the Bienville forest, 

 the small farmers got most of their 

 credit from local bankers, who were 

 enthusiastic over the prospect of de- 

 veloping this small, scattered logging 

 industry. (Now, about 90 percent of 

 the small operators are able to finance 

 themselves. ) 



With the independent financing, the 

 farmers could work their timber sales, 

 which averaged 42,000 board feet, dur- 

 ing their off season and could sell their 

 timber products to the best financial 

 advantage. From the start, this busi- 

 ness developed into a cooperative proj- 

 ect. Two or more farmers helped each 

 other cut the timber and haul it. For 

 example, on no one sale was there 

 enough white ash to be hauled profit- 

 ably to the Newton market. But when 

 several men pooled their ash logs and 

 hauled them to market on one truck, 

 the logs could be sold at a premium 

 price as white ash, rather than as 

 "log-run" to the local sawmill at a 

 much lower price. Likewise, high-value 

 veneer logs, perhaps 2 or 3 veneer logs 

 out of a 42,000-board-foot sale, were 



hauled to Jackson; white oak stave 

 stock went to a stave mill; cross-tie 

 logs were sold to a cross-tie mill, and 

 so on. Sawlogs were decked along 

 roads or at the farmer's home place to 

 be sold when the market was good. 



How such special markets were 

 made available to the farmer-opera- 

 tors is exemplified in the development 

 of a cross-tie market in the south end 

 of the forest, where many scattered 

 tracts have only "hill hardwoods" that 

 are of low quality and suitable mostly 

 for cross ties. No cross-tie market 

 existed in that part of the forest. Roy 

 Hughes, of the Bienville timber-mark- 

 ing crew, solved the problem by per- 

 suading the T. J. Moss Tie Co. to place 

 a small mill in the area and buy the 

 farmers' cross-tie cuts. In a year the 

 farmers cut 18,000 cross ties. 



The sales of timber to farmers 

 amount to a considerable volume. In 

 1946, nearly 5 million board feet was 

 sold to 141 small operators; in 1947, 

 more than 11 million board feet was 

 sold to 244 operators. Despite such a 

 volume, the forest is not being over- 

 cut. Most of this timber is "hill hard- 

 wood" that is overtopping the pine 

 reproduction, and is being removed in 

 improvement cuts, rather than as a 

 commercial undertaking. Hardwood 

 stumpage prices are kept reasonably 

 low as an inducement to keep the sales 

 going while the market will absorb the 

 low-grade hardwoods; at the same 

 time the forest is being put in a good 

 growing condition, because the re- 

 moval of the low-grade hardwoods ac- 

 celerates the growth of the remaining 

 choice species of pine and hardwoods. 



All the sales are handled on a tree- 

 scale basis. The farmers participate in 

 selecting and measuring the trees, and 

 thereby get practical instruction in the 

 woods by foresters as to why one tree 

 is marked to be cut and another tree is 

 left to grow. They also learn some- 

 thing about the use of tables to deter- 

 mine the volume of the trees they buy 

 in the sales. They use the information 

 in handling timber in the national for- 

 est as well as on their own wood lots. 



