12 MISC. PUBLICATION 87, U. 8S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
THINNING PINES IN MARYLAND 
A 5-acre field of 15-year-old loblolly pine on a Maryland farm 
recently gave to the owner a net profit of $24.18 from thinnings. 
The trees were 3 to 7 inches in diameter, and 12 to 25 feet high. The 
thinnings gave 5 cords of firewood per acre. This sold for $3 a cord. 
The returns, expenses, and profit on the operation of cutting and 
marketing the 5-acre stand of pines are as follows: 
Receipts : 
25 COrds. WO0G, at $3 2 Seas | ee es a a ee ee $75, 00 
Expenses: 
Cuthing and -sawin?. LSSanOurss ageless ee ee $34. 50: 
Hauling; mile SOshoursseat 9 0ee mee lake 2 eee oe eee eee 15. 00. 
Gasoline, “Gallons; at 22¢2 3. - eae See ee ee aes 
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F-220001 
Figure 7.—Frank Outland, of Northampton County, N. C., gathers valuable woods 
straw and leaf mold for use and for sale, and cuts fuel wood and saw timber 
from these woods 
The remaining stand is composed of thrifty, fast-growing, high- _ 
quality trees that can be thinned again in 15 years or less for poles or 
small saw timber. 
PINE STRAW—A COMMERCIAL PRODUCT 
A. B. Williams, Wade, N. C., makes a regular income selling pine 
straw (leaves or needles) from his 10-acre patch of pines. He sells 
the straw on the ground at the rate of 25 cents per cartload. As an 
acre produces three to five loads his net income is from 75 cents to 
$1.25 per acre yearly. A farmer near Fayetteville, N. C., makes his 
chief living from raking his pine straw and selling it in town for 
$3 a load. In the strawberry sections of the South, pine straw 
unraked on the ground brings from $2 per acre in North Carolina 
(fig. 7) to $5 in Mississippi. 
