SOUTH CAROLINA FOREST RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES 



The Social And Economic Setting 



Population 



IN 1940 South Carolina had a population of 

 1,899,804, an increase of 9 percent over 1930. 

 This increase was in the nonfarm population, and 

 can be attributed chiefly to the current industrial 

 expansion and the concentration of factory workers 

 in towns and cities. Between 1930 and 1940 the 

 farm population decreased slightly — from 914,098 to 

 913,312. 



The distribution of farm and nonfarm population 

 is related to the proportion of the land in forest. In 

 1940 the 26 counties that were 50 percent or more 

 forested (figs. 8 and 18) contained only 45 percent of 

 the total and 37 percent of the nonfarm population, 

 although they included more than half (58 percent) 

 of the State's area. These counties averaged only 

 48 persons per square mile, while the counties less 

 than half forested averaged 82; the State average 

 was 62. The decade 1930-40 witnessed an increase 

 of 4 percent in farm population in the counties 50 

 percent or more forested, and a decrease of 4 percent 



in those less than half forested. Sixty-three percent 

 of the State's nonfarm increase was in the counties 

 less than half forested. Although these figures do 

 not tell the whole story, they suggest the growing 

 concentration of industry (chiefly textile) in coun- 

 ties with smaller areas of forest. In many of these, 

 however, agriculture is practiced with greater in- 

 tensity than in the more sparsely settled but more 

 heavily forested counties. 



Agriculture 



Until about 1875, South Carolina, one of the earli- 

 est settled areas of the New World, was an almost 

 purely agricultural State. Room for subsistence 

 crops was provided by clearings in the dense forest. 

 Agricultural development, however, was attended by 

 much exploitation and wasteful liquidation of the 

 forests, and by overcropping of cleared lands. Much 

 agricultural land — in the light soils of the Coastal 

 Plain as well as the heavier ones of the Piedmont 

 Plateau — was abandoned when it became infertile 



Figure 8. — Population per square mile in South 

 Carolina, 1940. 



