field pine stands are everywhere. Many of them date back 

 to the big collapse of cotton prices following World War I, 

 the arrival of the boll weevil, and the prosperous '20's 

 when Negro tenants left the farm in droves to seek city 

 jobs. Since a large proportion of Wake's old-field stands 

 are young, the under-sawlog pine figures would naturally 

 reflect the bulk of their volume. Aerial photo-interpreta- 

 tion showed more than one-third of Wake County to be 

 occupied by young old-field pine, averaging about 10 cords 

 per acre of under-sawlog volume. These are the stands 

 that will produce high yields of sawtimber in the future. 



If the agricultural practices of a county still features 

 the cycle of land clearing and abandonment, that county 

 will continue to have stands of pine. Apparently, if the 

 sample counties are representative, the cycle is still active 

 enough in the Piedmont to keep up the volume of under- 

 sawlog-size pine. However, farm leaders are successfully 

 working to end this primitive type of farming. Soil con- 

 Table 10. 

 ESTIMATED VOLUME IN SOUND UNDER- 

 SAWLOG-SIZE TREES 



Region, or Survey Total Total Volume — M. Cords 



Unit (See map Commercial Pine Hardwood Total 



page vii Forest Acres 6"-8" 6"-12" 



Northern Coastal Plain 



(23 counties) 4,140,752 7,288 11,511 18,799 



Southern Coastal Plain 



(21 counties) 5,607,185 10,822 8,579 19,401 



Piedmont 



(35 counties) 5,039,742 16,078 17,539 33,617 



Mountains 



(21 counties) 3,748,679 2,849 12,597 15,446 



State 



(100 counties) 18,536,358 37,037 50,226 87,263 



servation practices will enable good lands to stay pro- 

 ductive, so they will not be abandoned; therefore, this 

 time-honored cycle cannot be depended upon indefinitely to 

 renew the source of pine timber. Whether foresters can 

 develop practical means of keeping pine in the Piedmont 

 remains to be seen. Probably it can be done if land owners 

 can be persuaded to expend the necessary effort. 



Forestry in Yadkin County deserves special comment. 

 This county possessed the second highest under-sawlog- 

 size pine volume per acre in the state. In Wake, the big 

 land abandonment movement occurred some years ago; in 

 Yadkin it seems to be on a perpetual basis. The county is 

 packed with small farms, each of which grows a few acres 

 of tobacco. Not having much smooth land, owners have to 

 cultivate up-and-down land; and, so far, terracing and 

 contour plowing have not been adopted very widely. Con- 

 sequently, land soon erodes and becomes unsuitable for to- 

 bacco culture. Farmers abandon old fields as they clear 

 new ones, and the annual "turnover" is about 2 per cent 

 of the land. 



This system may not be the best farming, but the county 

 is more successful than any other sampled in the matter 

 of permanently maintaining pine stands. If this kind of 

 tobacco farming keeps up, Yadkin will have plenty of pine 

 in future years, and its stands will yield high above the 

 average. 



(Note: Throughout this report, whenever a "sample" 

 county is discussed, it should be kept in mind that the sam- 

 ple illustrates conditions in several other counties in the 

 section.) 



OTHER MATERIAL SUITABLE FOR 

 CORDWOOD USE 



After sawlogs are cut from a tree, wood usuable for 

 fuel or pulp remains in the upper-stem, or top. Upper- 

 stem material below four inches in diameter was not 

 counted. 



Table 12 shows the volume, in cords, of all sound trees 

 over five inches d.b.h., except that upper-stem and limbs 



Table 11. 

 COMPARISON OF ESTIMATES OF SOUND UNDER-SAWLOG-SIZE VOLUMES, 



1938 AND 1945 



(1938 Estimate by U. S. Forest Survey; 1945 Estimate by Forest Resource Appraisal. 



Both estimates are based on their respective data from the same 



twenty-one sample counties.) 



Northern 

 Coastal 

 Plain 



Southern 

 Coastal 

 Plain 



Piedmont 



Mountains 



State 



Average Volume Per Acre — Standard Cords 



Pine 





F. R. Appr. (1945) 



1.76 



Forest Survey (1938) 



1.69 



Hardwoods 





F. R. Appr. (1945) 



2.78 



Forest Survey (1938) 



3.29 



Total: Pine and Hardwoods 





F. R. Appr. (1945) 



4.54 



Forest Survey (1938) 



4.98 



Per Cent That 1945 Estimate 





Differs from 1938 Estimate . . 



—8.8 



1.93 



3.19 



.76 



2.00 



1.29 



2.47 



.92 



1.58 



1.53 



3.48 



3.36 



2.71 



1.98 



3.32 



2.82 



2.63 



3.46 



6.67 



4.12 



4.71 



3.27 



5.79 



3.74 



4.21 



+5.8 



+15.1 



+10.1 



+11.9 



(17) 



