The New Deal Years 



The onset of the Great 

 Depression in 1929 

 prompted recognition of 

 the necessity for a national 

 inventory of resources and 

 a change of policy in their 

 management. 



In 1933, the Forest Service 

 submitted to Congress a 

 1,651 -page, indepth 

 analysis of the Nation's 

 timber resource: "A National 

 Plan for American Forestry," 

 commonly referred to as 

 the Copeland Report (after 

 Senator Royal S. Copeland, 

 who introduced the Senate 

 resolution requesting it). 



The Copeland Report 

 (USDA Forest Service 1 933), 

 while acknowledging the 

 progress made under the 

 Weeks Law and 

 Clarke-McNary Act 

 acquisition program, 

 nevertheless painted a grim 

 picture of the South's timber 

 resource overall. Some of 

 the important points: 



1 . The southern pineries 

 had been heavily cut, and 

 fire had run rampant 

 thereafter. (Between 1890 

 and 1933, the number of 

 woods fires in the South 

 exceeded 100,000 annually, 

 with the area burned 



estimated at several million 

 acres every year.) The 

 forest values left after "cut 

 out and get out lumbering 

 [were] very little." 



2. Many thousands of acres 

 of pine lands were deficient 

 because of failure to leave 

 sufficient seed trees. 

 Skidder logging of 

 old-growth longleaf stands 

 left few trees. Slash fires 

 completed the destruction. 



3. The mixed shortleaf, 

 loblolly, and hardwoods 

 stands of the upper Coastal 

 Plain and lower Piedmont, 

 particularly in Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Louisiana, and 

 Arkansas, had been 

 subjected to first the removal 

 of the pine sawtimber, later 

 the pine poles, and finally 

 the pine pulpwood. The 

 remaining stand consisted 

 of poor and defective 

 hardwoods, chiefly 

 low-grade oak and gum. 



4. The commercial forest 

 area in the South was 

 estimated at 190.8 million 

 acres; 43.5 million acres 

 were characterized as 

 barren or poorly stocked, 

 "as a result of fire and 

 mismanagement." An 

 additional 19 million acres 



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