Public assistance is needed in controlling fires, 

 insects, and disease, in promoting better manage- 

 ment of stands, providing trees for planting, in re- 

 search on forest problems, and in the solution of 

 economic problems over which the individual owner 

 or operator has little or no control. Some of the 

 costs of this assistance must be borne by the Federal, 

 State, and perhaps the county governments. 



To assure adequate returns from this expenditure 

 and protect the interests of local people, the public 

 is entitled to require of timberland owners and oper- 

 ators compliance with the principles of forest prac- 

 tice directed toward building up the growing stock 

 and increasing forest productivity. Numerous meas- 

 ures for the cooperation of the Federal Government 

 and the States on behalf of better forest management 

 have been advanced and some put into practice. 

 The report on Forest Lands of the United States by 

 the Joint Committee on Forestry of the 77th Con- 

 gress {IS) outlines a constructive program which 

 the State of South Carolina might adopt. Its en- 

 actment into law and accomplishment on the ground 

 would do more than anything else to establish tim- 

 ber production on a high and permanent level. 

 Important features of this program are discussed 

 below. 



Extension of Forest-Fire Control 



The degree to which forest fires are controlled in 

 South Carolina v/ill, among other things, determine 

 the ability of the State to produce the amount of 

 wood needed in the future without dangerously de- 

 pleting its forest capital. Unquestionably, much of 

 the understocking and, on many areas, complete ab- 

 sence of reproduction, are directly chargeable to un- 

 controlled fires. Even the casual observer is im- 

 pressed by the rapidity with which cut-over forests — 

 particularly pine — reestablish themselves where 

 there are adequate seed sources and the trees are 

 protected from fire during critical stages of growth. 

 It is evident that an expanded program of forest-fire 

 control would be an effective means of bettering 

 forest conditions. 



It was estimated in 1938 by State and Federal 

 protective agencies that adequate protection of State 

 and private forest lands from fires would require an- 

 nual appropriations of $627,000. In the calendar 

 year 1942, however, the expenditure for this purpose 

 in South Carolina was only $277,901, of which 

 $194,641 was allotted by the State and counties, 

 $50,996 contributed by the Federal Government 



under the Clarke-McNary law, and $32,264 supplied 

 by private sources. 



According to the report of the State Commission 

 of Forestry (5) for the fiscal year 1942, 23 of South 

 Carolina's 46 counties and 4 private associations 

 had formed forest protective organizations to coop- 

 erate with landowners in the prevention and sup- 

 pression of fires on their properties. The area thus 

 protected covered 6,971,936 acres. In addition, 

 148,910 acres in other counties were given extensive 

 protection by means of detection units. National- 

 forest land under protection amounted to 558,384 

 acres, and State forest land not in protective associa- 

 tions to 85,000 acres, bringing the total forest area 

 which was under at least extensive protection to 7.7 

 million acres, or 72 percent of South Carolina's pro- 

 ductive forest land. During the period covered by 

 the report approximately 4,500 fires were reported 

 for the area under extensive protection. These 

 burned about 118,000 acres. The Forest Service 

 estimates that during the calendar year 1942, 7,500 

 fires burned more than a million acres of unprotected 

 forest in the State. 



In trying to eliminate uncontrolled fires, forestry 

 agencies do not contemplate a policy of complete 

 fire exclusion. There is growing evidence that pre- 

 scribed burning can be of great value if properly 

 done in certain kinds of stands. In some types of 

 forests, heavy accumulations of litter which would 

 burn with disastrous intensity if ignited during 

 periods of high hazard, can by proper burning be re- 

 duced with comparatively little damage to forest 

 growth. Grazing in some longleaf and slash pine 

 forests seems to improve if the range is burned every 

 2 or 3 years under the right conditions. Fire can 

 also be a valuable tool to the forester in promoting 

 the dominance of pine in stands that are threatened 

 by the invasion of less desirable hardwoods. How- 

 ever, much remains to be learned about prescribed 

 burning; even in the hands of the most skilled and 

 experienced men, fires sometimes do more harm 

 than good. 



Controlling Diseases and Insects 



Forest diseases and insects cause a great deal of 

 loss annually to standing and cut timber. Except 

 for the chestnut blight which has killed most of the 

 chestnut in the mountain regions, there are no im- 

 portant epidemic diseases of forest trees in South 

 Carolina, but considerable loss of sound wood is 

 caused by rots which enter trees through fire wounds 

 at the base, or through broken branch stubs or 



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