Often the farmer sells timber only when he is hard pressed 

 for money. As a general rule no serious consideration is given to 

 reproduction following the cut. This delays the production of a 

 merchantable crop and in many cases produces lower quality. How- 

 ever, due to the fertility of the soil and the type of tree common 

 to this area, a remarkably good job of reproduction occurs even 

 though very little care has been given to this particular problem. 

 The good results of a forestry program on a farm take so long that 

 the farmer tends to set this sort of thing aside. He is not able 

 to see immediate returns for good forestry practices and is often 

 reluctant to wait fifteen or twenty years before he reaps a cash 

 profit. 



Better utilization of forest land by the area farmers could 

 greatly improve the overall farm income situation. However, the 

 major problem is educational, and there is a scarcity of person- 

 nel and money with which to operate a program to encourage better 

 forestry practices by farmers and small tract owners. 



Lumber companies own just over five percent of the total land 

 area in forests. When added to the pulp and paper companies and 

 the major land holding companies, professionally managed forest 

 lands amount to about half of the total forest area. 



There are no lands in the Albemarle Area set aside for national 

 forests. Less than three percent of the forest land in the area is 

 in public ownership, and almost half of it is in one tract - Petti- 

 grew State Park in Washington County. There is a surprisingly small 

 amount of forest land in public ownership in the entire Northern 

 Coastal Plain, as well as the Albemarle Area. Table 2 shows a 

 breakdown of forest land by acreage and ownership class for both 

 the Albemarle Area and the Northern Coastal Plain. 



Forest ownership patterns vary considerably across the state. 

 Public ownership of forest land is about nine percent of the total 

 in North Carolina, but only three percent in the Albemarle Area. 



8 



