This combination of events led to what is surely a great 

 achievement in the history of forestry, the regeneration and 

 the growth of the South's third forest. There are now 182 

 million acres of timberland in the South. Timberland is 

 defined as land capable of growing 20 cubic feet of timber 

 per acre per year and not withdrawn from utilization for 

 timber harvests by law or administrative regulation. 



Timberland is the predominant land use in the South; it 

 covers 2 to 3 out of every 5 acres in all the Southern States, 

 including eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma. There are 

 more acres in timberland than in cropland and pasture 

 combined. 



The South's timberland is composed of a diversity of forest 

 types. Approximately one-third of the area is covered by 

 pine types. 41 million acres in natural pine stands and 

 another 21 million acres in planted pine. Loblolly pine is by 

 far the most abundant species. It occurs in natural stands 

 in most sections of the Coastal Plain and Piedmont, where 

 it has frequently seeded in on idle cropland and pasture. 

 These stands usually contain substantial numbers of 

 hardwood species as well. Across much of the South, pine 

 stands represent a transitional stage in natural succession 

 to hardwood forest types. 



Mixed pine-hardwood stands occupy 27 million acres, or 15 

 percent of the timberland in the South. Typically, these 

 stands are 50 percent or more oak and 25 to 50 percent pine. 



industry (fig. 4). This category is diverse: it includes 

 farmers and all other individuals and corporations that do not 

 run wood-processing plants. Corporate owners include a 

 variety of organizations holding timberland property as an 

 investment, recreational area, or for other purposes. Typical 

 corporate owners are utility companies, railroads, realty 

 firms, hunting clubs, insurance companies, and banks. 

 Farmers own 40 million acres of timberland. corporate 

 owners 16 million acres, and other private individuals 66 

 million acres. These acreages represent approximately one- 

 fourth, one-tenth, and one-third, respectively, of all the 

 timberland in the South. 



Forest industries hold 42 million acres, slightly less than 

 one-quarter of the total area of timberland. This category 

 includes companies or individuals that operate primary 

 wood-using plants and either own timberland or hold a long- 

 term lease on such land. 



About 60 percent of the 18 million acres of publicly owned 

 timberland in the South is in national forests. The rest is 

 in State forests and wildlife refuges and other Federal. State, 

 and county lands. 



In 1984, the softwood timber inventory on timberlands in 

 the South was 102 billion cubic feet, about equally divided 

 between the Southeast and the South Central regions. There 

 was an additional 1 19 billion cubic feet of hardwood timber, 

 also about equally divided between the regions. 



Hardwood forest types occupy over half the timberland area 

 in the South. 93 million acres. Two-thirds of this area is 

 classified as upland hardwoods. A typical upland hardwood 

 association includes oaks and hickories, with gum, yellow- 

 poplar, elm, and maple. 



There are 30 million acres of bottomland hardwoods in the 

 South, about 17 percent of the timberland. Over half of 

 these bottomland forests are located along the alluvial 

 floodplains of the major rivers in Louisiana, Florida, 

 Georgia, and Mississippi. Oak-gum-cypress is the typical 

 association on these sites, with such species as willow, 

 water, laurel, swamp chestnut, and cherrybark oaks; water 

 tupelo; blackgum and sweetgum; and baldcypress. 



Some 164 million acres, or 90 percent, of the timberland 

 in the South is in private ownership. The bulk of this area, 

 122 million acres, is in the other private ownership 

 category, that is. all private ownerships other than forest 



As with timberland area, the timber inventory is 

 concentrated on the other private ownerships — these contain 

 73 percent of the hardwood and 61 percent of the softwood 

 inventories. Another 16 percent of the hardwood inventory 

 and 26 percent of the softwood inventory are on forest 

 industry ownerships. Most of the remaining inventories are 

 on the national forests. 



In 1984, an estimated 7.5 billion cubic feet of roundwood 

 timber products — sawlogs, veneer logs, pulpwood. 

 fuel wood, and other round products — were harvested from 

 the forests in the South. Over 5 billion cubic feet o\ this 

 volume came from softwood species, primarily southern 

 pine, and 2.5 billion cubic feet came from a variety o\ 

 hardwood species. The value of standing timber — the trees 

 from which these products were cut — in 19S4 was $3.1 

 billion. S2.7 billion for softwoods, and $0.4 billion for 

 hardwoods. This amount, the stumpage value, represents 

 the value that landowners received from the sale of timber. 



15 



