likely to fail on the so-called "backwater areas" 

 supporting stands of overcup oak and pecan, where 

 timber-growth rates are slow and timber quality low. 

 The only incentive to private ownership of these 

 lands for forest purposes is the prospect of early liqui- 

 dation through cutting of the old-growth timber. 

 When once stripped of their original stands, lands in 

 these heavily inundated areas will revert eventually 

 to State ownership for nonpayment of taxes unless 

 oil or some other subsurface resource is discovered. 

 Forest management on these lands will become, 

 therefore, either a State or national problem. 



8. Cheap, long-term financing. Some form of 

 cheap, long-term financing is necessary in order to 

 stabilize forest ownership, to facilitate continuity of 

 management policy, to assist private owners of tim- 

 berland during the early stages of building up to a 

 sustained yield, and to encourage the continued in- 

 vestment in growing stock thereafter. The exten- 

 sion to forest owners of credit facilities, such as those 

 now afforded by the Reconstruction Finance Cor- 

 poration to industrialists and by the Farm Credit 

 Administration to farmers, is suggested. 



52142°— .38- 



