had been burned annually. 

 An early timber 

 management plan stated: 

 "One can see for miles 

 across lands, barren except 

 for remnants left from 

 logging." The Corps 

 established about 70,000 

 acres of loblolly seedlings 

 within a few years. 



Likewise, the 

 Chattahoochee was 

 purchased mainly from 

 large lumber companies 

 after the land had been cut 

 over. Early management 

 practices consisted of 

 protecting the land from fire 

 and releasing desirable 

 seedlings and saplings on 

 the cutover land. Most 

 stands contained several 

 age classes because of 

 previous management. 

 Even-aged stands were 

 found only on abandoned 

 farmland or pastures. 



The preceding paragraphs 

 describe typical conditions 

 on the new national forests 

 in the South. 



The 1936 Annual Nursery 

 and Planting Report showed 

 535,765 acres of national 

 forest land in need of 

 planting-mostly pine sites 

 in the Coastal Plain and 

 Piedmont forest and in 

 Arkansas (USDA Forest 

 Service 1985b). In 1935, 

 nearly 1 ,200 acres were 

 planted. With the anticipated 



increase in funds from 

 economic recovery 

 programs and Civilian 

 Conservation Corps labor, 

 the Southern Region had 

 already taken action to 

 increase the production of 

 planting stock for national 

 forest and other 

 reforestation projects. 



Specifically, the Robert Y. 

 Stuart Nursery, constructed 

 on the Kisatchie in 1934, 

 was enlarged to increase 

 production capacity from 

 10 million trees annually to 

 42 million. A new nursery, 

 the W.W. Ashe on the 

 DeSoto National Forest, 

 produced 20 million trees 

 in 1937 (U.S. Congress, 

 Senate 1936). These two 

 nurseries, along with the 

 Forest Service Nursery in 

 Russellville, AR (where 

 annual production capacity 

 was 3.2 million trees), were 

 producing primarily longleaf, 

 slash, loblolly, and shortleaf 

 pine. 



In 1941, the three Forest 

 Service nurseries produced 

 over 53 million trees. (Other 

 planting stock needed for 

 the national forests was 

 obtained from private or 

 State nurseries.) That year, 

 62.2 million trees were 

 planted on 60,000 acres, 

 mostly pine sites in the 

 Coastal Plain forests. This 

 effort constituted the largest 

 planting program ever 



27 



