GENERAL SURVEY OF TEXAS WOODLANDS. 27 



dcstiik-d to be an important woodlot region. To this end the woodland 

 connected with every farm should be kept in vigorous growing condition 

 by the saving of young, thrift}', and rapid growing trees. Selective 

 cutting rather than clear cutting, fire prevention, and the restriction 

 of grazing on areas where young timber growth should be encouraged, 

 are the lines along which woodlot management should be extended. 



Summary of Conditions in Eastern Texas. 



The East Texas Timber Belt no longer represents a great belt of 

 timbered lands, as the name implies. It is rather a combined agri- 

 cultural, grazing, and forest region, portions of which still contain an 

 abundance of timber and maintain large forest industries. The counties 

 which comprise this region supported an agricultural population before 

 the lumber industry on a large scale invaded the State. Over large 

 portions of the region lumbering has reached its zenith and declined. 

 In other portions it is now at its maximum and overshadows all other 

 interests. In forty eastern counties, with an area of nearly 21,000,000 

 acres, one-third of the area consists of cut-over forest lands, nearly 

 one-third is improved agricultural land, and the balance is made up of 

 virgin, culled, and second growth forests, waste, and overflowed lands. 



Agriculture is well advanced in the northeastern counties, where lum- 

 bering on a large scale first began and has since declined, and has been 

 most delayed in those counties where lumbering still dominates. The 

 time i? approaching when the remaining large timber tracts will be cut 

 over. There is every reason to hope and expect that large bodies of 

 cut-over lands will be divided into farms and the best of them improved. 

 Most woodland areas of the future will properly become parts of farms 

 and should be protected and handled so as to produce fuel, posts, lum- 

 ber, and other forest products for home use and for sale. It is im- 

 possible to believe that all of the millions of acres of cut-over lands 

 will be needed or can be used for the growing of annual crops. Attached 

 to farms or as well managed forests they are an important part of an 

 agricultural region. Increases in stumpage values are constantly taking 

 place and when the large timber holdings are gone, products from farm 

 woodlots and small timber holdings will have a value comparable with 

 those in agricultural regions of other sections of the country which are 

 high today. The variety of forest products has already greatly increased 

 and stumpage values are relatively high in many of the best agricultural 

 counties of northeastern Texas, where the lumber industry on a large 

 scale has disappeared. Hardwoods hitherto not exploited are coming 

 into the market where once only pine was manufactured. Forest prod- 

 ucts in a variety of forms are being utilized along with the advance in 

 agriculture and the more intensive use of land. The economically val- 

 uable forests of the future will be those of small size in well populated 

 sections where the products can be easily marketed and are in demand. 



Certain fundamental necessities in the economic care and use of land 



