PROTECTIVE FORESTS. 45 



STATE MANAGEMENT. 



The original State timberlands would have sufficed for a policy of 

 Slate management on a large scale. Even after the various railway 

 grants this might have been the case. But it has been the policy of 

 the State to hold these lands available for purchase on mild conditions, 

 so that when the yellow pine in particular found a wide market at 

 good prices the State pine lands were in much demand. Either the 

 land or the stumpage was sold. The greater part of the pine land now 

 held by the State is cut-over land. During the past five years this 

 also has been in demand, until the total has been reduced to an acreage 

 too small and too scattering to make State management possible. 

 This would now involve the acquisition by purchase or otherwise of 

 additional lands. The same would be equally true of the shortleaf 

 area and the Edwards Plateau. In all of these regions the topographic 

 and soil conditions are such as to render imperative the maintenance 

 by some agency of protective forests for the benefit of agricultural 

 and other interests. The best argument for State management lies in 

 this need of protective forests. 



PROTECTIVE FORESTS IN THE LONGLEAF PINE BELT. 



In parts of the east Texas region the retention of the pine forests is 

 threatened by the sale of the land for farms. It is open to question 

 whether agriculture can permanently succeed here; since it has failed 

 on similar land in the Carolinas, which has been found too sandy and 

 barren for crops. a Immigration into the region is taking place at 

 a rapid rate, assisted greatly by the oil boom and the demand for 

 labor created by lumbering. The past two years have witnessed an 

 influx of settlers literally by the car load. The rapid development of 

 the country in this direction, together with the possibility of extend- 

 ing the present known area of oil production, has created a demand for 

 the cut-over lands such that already some hundreds of thousands of 

 acres have been bought up by large concerns or by individuals. Cut- 

 over State lands, which were about the only timberlands left to its 

 ownership in this district, have been included in these purchases. 

 The State's interest as an owner is therefore not of great moment. The 



a The Bureau of Forestry is cooperating with the Houston Oil Company in the prep- 

 aration of a working plan for the management of their timberlands, one of the objects 

 of which is to outline a scheme of lumbering which will provide for the preservation 

 of younger trees until all that now occupy the ground are large enough for high-grade 

 lumber. If with State cooperation, an effective system of fire prevention can be car- 

 ried out, of course the renewal of the forest from seedlings will be assured, and thus 

 the continued productivity of the forest will be made possible. With this sort of 

 cooperation between the State and private owners or corporations, the larger part 

 of the longleaf pine lands might be kept as permanent commercial forests. 



