ing is also projected to nearly triple by the year 
2030: per capita income is projected to increase 
almost 2.3 times. 
When you add all of this up, it means only one 
thing. We have got to have more timber to meet the 
needs of not only another 64 million people but the 
demands of 305 million people with purchasing 
power 2.3 times that of today. We all know that there 
is some uncertainty associated with economic pro- 
jections. However, in spite of uncertainty, one thing 
seems clear--the consumption of most timber prod- 
ucts has been rising and is expected to continue to 
rise. Total demand for timber is projected to rise 
from 16.7 billion cubic feet in 1984 to 21.1 billion in 
the year 2030. This is about a 25-percent increase 
in demand over the next 45 years, but the rate of 
increase in demand slows down in comparison to 
increases of the last 20 years. 
Timber Supplies 
Timber harvesting was not a major factor affect- 
ing the forests in the South until after the Civil War. 
At that time, timber harvesting accelerated as rail- 
roads were extended into the vast pine forests on 
the Coastal Plain. Technology for sawing large vol- 
umes of timber was put into practice, and huge 
markets for lumber developed in the Midwest and 
Northeast. From about the 1880's until the 1920's, 
very large areas were harvested. Some of this land 
was used for crops and much bigger areas for pas- 
ture. Because of such use and the uncontrolled fires 
that burned over large areas each year, only a part 
of the cutover lands came back to forests. 
Some did, though, and the early 1900's marked 
the beginning of what became the South's second 
forest--the forest that supplied the wood for the ex- 
pansion of the pulp and paper industry in the 1930's 
and on into the 1960's. 
As the second forest was developing, several 
trends took hold. By the early 1920's, the use of land 
for crops and pasture peaked and began to decline. 
Forest industry and Federal/State forestry agencies 
became concerned about the future timber supply 
and the lack of regeneration of cutover lands. This 
concern led to early forestry programs of fire protec- 
tion, technical and financial assistance, research 
and education, and management of public, indus- 
try, and some private forests. Fire prevention and 
protection were especially effective, and a large part 
of the cutover land and idle crop and grazing land 
10 
regenerated to forests naturally. Research devel- 
oped ways to protect and regenerate forests and 
utilize southern pine timber for products such as 
pulp and plywood. This brought about major 
changes in forestry and forest industries. 
These same forces continued to affect the tim- 
ber situation for several decades. The area of land 
used for crops and pasture continued to drop 
through the 1950's, sometimes at rapid rates, and 
much of the area regenerated naturally. 
This scenario led to what is surely a great 
achievement in the history of forestry, the regenera- 
tion and growth of the South's third forest. This for- 
est is now a major land use, with forests accounting 
for 2 or 3 out of every 5 acres in all Southern States 
except Texas and Oklahoma. There are more acres 
in timberland than in cropland and pasture com- 
bined. 
In 1984, this third southern forest was the 
source of two-thirds of the Nation's pulpwood and 
close to half of all plywood, two-fifths of the hard- 
wood lumber, and one-third of the softwood lumber 
produced in the country. The total value of the tim- 
ber harvested--sawlogs, veneer logs, pulpwood, 
and other round products--at local points of delivery 
in 1984 was $6.1 billion. This figure is twice the value 
of the soybeans or cotton harvested in the South. 
For every $3 worth of agricultural crops harvested, 
there was $1 worth of timber harvested. The forest 
products industry is the #1 manufacturing industry 
in the South. It employs one out of every nine work- 
ers in the manufacturing industries and pays $1 out 
of every $10 in wages and salaries. 
Supply Outlook 
Although the timber situation in the South has 
shown great improvement in recent decades, and 
timber is now of great economic importance, there 
are trends underway that will affect the future in 
some major ways. The most recent surveys of 
forests in the South show that net annual timber 
growth, after rising for decades, has leveled off or 
begun to decline. If current trends for hardwoods 
continue, timber removals will exceed growth by the 
year 2000. 
In the case of softwoods, we are already at or 
near the break-even point where timber removal is 
about equal to growth, and we are facing a declin- 
ing inventory of softwood timber. There are four 
major causes for reduced softwood growth. One is 
