Vol. XVI 



JANUARY, 1910 



No. i 



PERPETUATING THE TIMBER RESOURCES 



OF THE SOUTH 1 



By R. S. KELLOGG, Assistant Forester, United Slates Forest Service 



THE twelve Southern States of Ala- 

 bama, Arkansas, Florida, Geor- 

 gia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missis- 

 sippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, 

 Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, have a 

 forest area of more than 200,000,000 

 acres, nearly one-half their entire land 

 surface. There is now standing in 

 these forests not less than 600,000,- 

 000,000 board feet of merchantable tim- 

 ber, with a stumpage value of at least 

 $2,000,000,000. 



The influence of the forest resources 

 of the South extends far beyond its 

 borders. North to Canada and from 

 the Atlantic to the Great Plains, their 

 products are in daily use. The Southern 

 States supply nearly forty-five per cent 

 of the lumber consumed in the entire 

 United States. The South has a mo- 

 nopoly of yellow pine, that great 

 structural timber, the cut of which 

 alone is one-third of that of all kinds 

 of lumber in the country. It has a 

 monopoly of cypress and tupelo. It 

 leads in the production of oak, of hick- 

 ory, of red gum, and of cottonwood. 

 Its hickory is the best vehicle wood ever 



discovered. Its oak is in demand for 

 the wine vats of California and of Eu- 

 rope. Its longleaf pine yields nine- 

 tenths of the naval stores of the world. 

 Twelve thousand sawmills are con- 

 verting the southern forests into lum- 

 ber and hundreds of other plants are 

 turning them into veneer and staves 

 and heading. Our railroad trains run 

 over rails laid on scores of millions of 

 ties cut in southern forests, and much 

 of the freight which they haul is car- 

 ried in cars made of yellow pine lum- 

 ber. 



The total annual value of the prod- 

 ucts of the southern forests is not less 

 than $450,000,000. Of this total, lum- 

 ber, lath and shingles amount to $275,- 

 000,000; posts, poles, rails, fire-wood, 

 and cross-ties, $125,000,000; naval 

 stores, $30,000,000, and cooperage 

 stock, $20,000,000. The average cot- 

 ton crop of the South for the past ten 

 years has been eleven and one-fourth 

 million bales, with an average farm 

 value of $523,000,000, only sixteen 

 per cent more than the value of 

 its forest products. The average corn 



'Abstract of speech delivered before Southern Commercial Congress, Washington, P. C. 

 December 7. 



