UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



^S^'^Ji. 



ULLETIN No. 3 



Contribution from the Forest Service, 

 HENRY S. GRAVES, Forester 



JZ^'^^i^ 



Washington, D. C. 



April 15, 1916 



FOREST CONSERVATION FOR STATES IN THE 

 SOUTHERN PINE REGION. 



By J. GiEViN Peters, Chief of State Cooperation. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



The situation summed up 1 



What the lumber industry means to the 



southern pine States 3 



Forest fires 4 



Unresti'icted grazing 7 



Page. 



Forest management 



State-owned forests 



Legislation 



How the Federal Government will aid. 

 Literature 



THE SITUATION SUMMED UP. 



A situation confronts the States of the southern pine region — Vir- 

 ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 

 Misissippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri — which, unless 

 met and controlled by adequate legislation, threatens seriously to 

 affect their future development and prosperity. The situation arises 

 from the removal of the pine and hardwood forests without proper 

 provision for restocking those cut-over areas, valuable chiefly for the 

 growing of timber, and from the destruction by fire of the young 

 trees and other vegetation on watersheds of important rivers, which 

 carries with it increased erosion, the silting up of stream channels, 

 and danger from floods. 



If cutting continues at the present rate without provision being 

 made for new timber crops, southern yellow pine will in the course 

 of time cease to be an important commercial resource of the South. 

 It is now one of the chief sources of wealth, but it is probable that 



Note. — The bulletin points out the essential elements in the various forest problems 

 that confront the States in the southern pine region, shows how these problems are inter- 

 related, and forms a basis on which may be founded a plan for solving thorn — matters 

 of great importance to lumbermen, farmers, and all others interested directly or Indirectly 

 In the conservation of the timber resources of that region. 



25987°— Bull. 364—16 



