twenty-five percent is on the southern Coastal Plain; 

 and the remaining 10 percent on the piedmont. 

 About half the volume is in sweetgum and black- 

 gum. Most of the old-growth timber is owned by 

 operating lumber companies for current or future 

 mill supply, or by timber companies for investment 

 or speculation. 



Second-growth. — Second-growth sawlog-size stands 

 contain 17.4 billion board feet, or 58 percent of South 

 Carolina's volume. Three-quarters consists of pine, 

 a preponderance due partly to extensive cutting of 

 old-growth pine in former years, partly to the use of 

 a lower diameter limit for pine saw-timber, and 

 partly to the tendency of abandoned fields to reseed 

 to pine rather than to hardwoods. 



Under-sawlog-size timber. — As shown in table 10 

 there is a small quantity of saw timber (1.1 billion 

 board feet) in the under-sawlog-size class. This 

 group contains sawlog-size trees left on cut-over 

 areas and young trees in cordwood stands that have 

 reached minimum saw-timber diameter. The vol- 

 ume per acre is rarely sufficient to justify commercial 

 logging operations, so that little of the under-sawlog- 

 size volume is merchantable at the present time. 



Volume by Tree Size and 'Density Class 



More than two-thirds of the pine saw-timber vol- 

 ume in South Carolina is in trees less than 19 inches 

 in diameter (fig. 30 and table 12). Many sawmills 

 operate in timber stands of much smaller average 

 diameter than 19 inches. Small logs are more ex- 

 pensive to saw per thousand board feet than large 



SPECIES GROUP 



AND 

 DIAMETER CLASS 



(INCHES) 



14 TO 18 



20 TO 24 



26 AND OVER 

 HARDWOODS 

 14 TO 18 



26 AND OVER 

 CYPRESS 

 10 TO 12 



20 TO 24 

 26 AND OVER 





mmmm 





:^ 



mm 



PERCENT 



ones, and yield a higher proportion of narrower 

 boards and lower grades, but the demand for the 

 lower grades of pine lumber is usually heavy enough 

 to support active logging in stands of relatively small 

 trees. 



For the principal uses of hardwoods and cypress 

 large logs are required, yet about half the hardwood 

 and two-thirds of the cypress saw-timber volume in 

 the State are in trees less than 19 inches in diameter. 

 Depletion of the large trees will probably force 

 plants now dependent upon them to curtail opera- 

 tions until new local supplies become available 

 through the growth of younger stands. 



Table 12. — Net board-foot volume. International ]4.-inch rule, by 

 tree-diameter classes, survey units, and species groups, 1936 



Survey unit 



and 

 species group 





Si 



ie of trees 







10-12 

 inches 

 d. b. h 



14-18 

 inches 

 d. b. h. 



20-24 

 inches 

 d. b. h. 



26+ 

 inches 

 d. b. h. 



All 

 classes 



State: 



Pines 



Hardwoods 



Million 

 bd. ft. 



407.4 



Million 

 bd. ft. 

 7.754.9 

 5.454.3 

 480.3 



Million 

 bd. ft. 

 3,007.2 

 2.889.4 

 266.6 



Million 

 bd.ft. 

 1.239.5 

 1,940.7 

 233.3 



Million 

 bd. ft. 

 18,524.2 

 10,284.4 

 1.387.6 







All species 



6.930.0 



13,689.5 



6,163.2 



3,413.5 



30.196.2 



Southern Coastal Plain: 

 Pines 



Hardwoods 



1,623.6 

 198.9 



2.291.7 



1,748.0 



171.3 



1,184.0 

 921.7 

 77.9 



664.0 



485.7 

 42.7 



5.763.3 



3,155.4 



490.8 







All species 



1,822.5 



4,211.0 



2,183.6 



1.192.4 



9.409.5 



Northern Coastal Plain: 



Pines 



Hardwoods 



Cypress 



2,772.2 

 208.5 



3.847.1 



2,733.8 



309.0 



1,435.9 



1,456.4 



188.7 



468.9 



1,211.3 



190.6 



8,524.1 



5,401.5 



896.8 







All species 



2,980.7 



6,889.9 



3,081.0 



1,870.8 



14,822.4 



Piedmont: 



Pines 



2,126.8 



1,616.1 



972.5 



387.3 

 511.3 



106.6 



243.7 



4,236.8 

 1,727.5 









All species 



2.126.8 



2.588.6 



898.6 



350.3 



5,964.3 



Figure 30. — Percent net board-foot volume. International }^-inch 

 rule, by species groups and diameters. 



The average densities (board feet per acre) of pine 

 and hardwoods in the State and survey units are 

 shown in table 13 and figure 31. The pine stands 

 are generally better stocked than the hardwood 

 stands; and the Coastal Plain forests, on the average, 

 are denser than those of the piedmont. Second- 

 growth and partly cut old-growth stands average 

 approximately 3,400 tp 5,600 board feet per acre on 

 the Coastal Plain and somewhat less on the pied- 

 mont. The density of uncut old-growth is naturally 

 much greater. The pine types average from 1 1 M to 



32 



