to 120 years for most 

 hardwood types (USDA 

 Forest Service 1985a, 

 unpubl.) (Five-year cutting 

 cycles had been tried for 

 plantation thinnings on 

 several forests but 

 discarded largely due to 

 fluctuating markets for small 

 roundwood, the small 

 volumes produced, and the 

 high costs of tree marking 

 and timber sale 

 administration for the more 

 frequent entries into the 

 plantations.) 



Volume and Value of 

 Harvests--ln 1962, the 

 reported volume of timber 

 harvested from the southern 

 national forests was 803,579 

 billion board feet, with a 

 value of $16,840,602. This 

 represented a 98-percent 

 increase in the annual 

 volume harvested and 

 530-percent increase in 

 value received over 1945's 

 reported cut of 405.229 

 billion board feet worth 

 $2,673,553. In the period 

 1 945-62, commercial forest 

 land area of the national 

 forests increased 574,000 

 acres, from 10,138,000 

 acres to 1 0,71 2,000 acres-a 

 5.7-percent increase. During 

 that same period 681,730 

 acres had been regenerated 

 to new stands by planting, 

 seeding, and prescribed 

 burning, plus other artificial 

 methods to obtain 

 regeneration-an average of 



40,102 acres annually, or 

 roughly 6.4 percent of the 

 commercial forest land 

 (USDA Forest Service 

 1985b, 1985a, unpubl., and 

 1985c, unpubl.). 



Tree Improvement 

 Program--The Southern 

 Region initiated its tree 

 improvement program in 

 1959 under the leadership 

 of Thomas F. Swofford. 

 With the cooperation of 

 geneticists, pathologists, 

 and other scientists from 

 Forest Service Research, 

 the program advanced 

 rapidly through a series of 

 intensive training sessions 

 for national forest timber 

 staffs to establishment of 

 seed-production areas in 

 carefully selected stands of 

 quality trees, development 

 of criteria for superior tree 

 selections, identification of 

 superior trees, and 

 establishment of 

 first-generation seed 

 orchards. 



Orchards were established 

 on the Francis Marion 

 National Forest in South 

 Carolina, the Nantahala in 

 North Carolina, the DeSoto 

 in Mississippi, the Kisatchie 

 in Louisiana, and the 

 Ouachita in Arkansas. 

 Clones of sand pine from 

 Florida's Ocala National 

 Forest were first included in 

 the Erambert Seed Orchard 

 on the DeSoto. Because of 



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