t 



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Figure 1. — Cattle grazing in second-growth longleaf pine being worked for naval stores. A'ote the large number of round trees just 



under turpentining size. 



was in farm woodland. The total value of farm 

 land and buildings was listed as $156,000,000, or 

 an average value per farm of slightly less than 

 $1,880. Two-thirds of the farmers are tenants, 

 sharecroppers, or managers, and only one-third 

 own the farms they work. 



Corn, the most extensively planted crop, in 1934 

 occupied over half the harvested cropland, with 

 the low average yield of approximately 8 bushels 

 per acre. One-fifth of the cropland was planted 

 to cotton, with an average yield of 0.4 bale per 

 acre. Other crops are forage plants, small grains, 

 sweetpotatoes, tobacco, sugarcane, watermelons, 

 and pecans. Also many beef cattle and hogs are 

 raised on open range throughout the area (fig. 1). 

 Although regular farm crops are the chief sources 

 of farm income, naval stores gum from longleaf 

 and slash pine trees and pulpwood from many 

 species are rapidly becoming important sources 

 of cash to the south Georgia farmer as well as of 

 part-time employment for between-season farm 

 labor. 



A total of 219,600 acres, or 5 percent of the agri- 



cultural area, was classified by the Forest Survey as 

 abandoned farm land. These areas probably are 

 reverting to timberland much faster than forest land 

 is being converted to cropland. 



Ownership 



According to the 1935 agricultural census, 62 

 percent of south Georgia, or 9}'> million acres, is in 

 farm ownership. A complete canvass of the naval 

 stores operations, made by the Forest Survey in 

 1934, revealed that 581 still operators in south 

 Georgia owned more than 1% million acres, or 12 

 percent of the total area. The average size of these 

 holdings was about 3,000 acres. 



According to data obtained in 1934-5 by R. B. 

 Craig in nine representative south Georgia coun- 

 ties, the principal kinds of landowners are farmers, 

 naval stores operators, land speculators, banks and 

 insurance companies, general forest operators, and 

 lumbermen. The predominance of large holdings 

 is indicated by the fact that 4 percent of the land- 

 owners own half the land, as shown in figure 2. 



11 



