Once denuded, much of 

 the land returned to the 

 individual States for 

 nonpayment of taxes and 

 was put up for tax sale. 

 Some of the prime 

 timberland of today, such 

 as the Bienville National 

 Forest in central Mississippi, 

 was purchased by the 

 Federal Government in an 

 attempt to rehabilitate 

 watersheds and to prevent 

 further deterioration of the 

 soil. 



The dramatic change in 

 industrial policy on land 

 ownership and 

 management came with 

 industry's substantial 

 investment in manufacturing 

 facilities. At first, industry 

 took a primarily custodial 

 approach, with fire 

 prevention its main 

 objective. Later industry 

 adopted management 

 practices to increase forest 

 productivity at an 

 ever-increasing pace. 

 William Greeley (1951) 

 summed up the situation 

 succinctly with the 

 statement, "Economic 

 interest in forestry increases 

 in proportion to the plant 

 investment per unit of raw 

 material." 



In 1942, J.E. McCaffrey, 

 woodlands manager of 

 International Paper 

 Company's Southern Kraft 

 Division, reported on 



information he had obtained 

 from forest industries 

 throughout the South. His 

 survey showed that, in 

 1925, owners of 82 

 properties totaling 4.7 

 million acres had started 

 forestry practices to make 

 their lands more productive. 

 In 1925, the southern pulp 

 and paper industry owned 

 less than 500,000 of those 

 acres; by 1 940, it owned 

 4.5 million acres, almost all 

 under what was then 

 considered intensive 

 management. Other 

 corporations in 1 940, lumber 

 companies, naval stores 

 operators, power 

 companies, oil companies, 

 and steel companies, owned 

 1 2 million to 1 5 million acres, 

 "so handled that the growing 

 stock is being materially 

 increased each year." 

 McCaffrey pointed out 

 (Clepper 1971, p. 246) that 

 "The latest figures available 

 show that prior to 1925 

 less than one-half dozen 

 technically trained men 

 were employed by the 

 industry in strictly forestry 

 work. The picture in 1940 is 

 greatly different; the industry 

 now employs a total of 220 

 trained foresters." 



Within the next 30 years, 

 under the successive 

 leadership of Earl Porter, 

 Oscar Traczewitz, and R.M. 

 Nonnemacher as 

 woodlands managers of 



8 



