Forest Resources 



-»> 



-$^ 



Forest Area and Distribution 



THE PRESENT forest area of Indiana is 4,140,000 

 acres, of which 58.000 have been withdrawn from 

 timber use and 4,082,000 are commercial forest. 

 Seventy-one percent of the forest area lies in the 

 southern part of the State. Forest areas range from 

 72 percent in Brown County in the south to only 1 

 percent in Benton County in the prairie area of the 

 north (fig. 9). 



Distribution of Indiana's forested areas of the north 

 contrasts sharply with those of the south. The 

 economy of the north includes vast industrial develop- 

 ment. Superior glaciated soils produce excellent crops, 

 and the area has retained but small scattered wood- 

 lands. The south, hilly and unglaciated. supports 

 extensive areas of forest land, and its economy depends 

 in part on the income derived from its forest products. 



Ownership 



Availability of timber and problems of management 

 are often affected by ownership. For the most part, 

 Federal and State forest holdings are in tracts suffi- 

 ciently large to furnish commercially important 

 amounts of wood in individual sales. The portion of 

 the Wayne-Hoosier National Forest located in south- 

 ern Indiana comprised 103,000 forested acres in 1950. 

 The Federal Government has another 60,000 acres of 

 forests in military depots and reservations. Other 

 public forests include 93,000 acres in State parks and 

 forests and 2,000 acres in county and community 

 forests. These forests, of course, have values other 

 than timber. 



Private owners are understandably interested in 

 immediate returns and ma)' manage their forests with 

 short-term perspectives to increase their current 

 income. The values they receive are mostly from 

 timber sales, cutting of material for buildings or other 

 home use, grazing, and shelter for livestock. Future 

 productivity of the forest is often sacrificed to increase 

 immediate cash income. 



Approximately 3.8 million acres (94 percent) of the 

 commercial forest land is privately owned. Farmers 

 own 2.9 million acres: mining companies, industrial 



^ITLET UllEN 



,■^"57 I PERCENT FOREST 



□ 0-19 

 I I 20-39 

 40-59 

 W^ 60-79 



Figure 9. — The most heavily forested counties are in the hilly, un- 

 glaciated area oj the southern part. 



concerns, and numerous small pri\ate owners control 

 0.9 million acres. 



About 100,000 of the State's 167,000 farms reported 

 woodland in 1950. The average woodland area per 

 farm was 28.9 acres, but the majorit\" of farms had 

 somewhat less. For example, there are more than one 

 million acres of forest scattered on 59,000 farms — an 

 average of only 1 7 acres of woodland per farm. These 

 units are unduly small for management as commercial 

 enterprises but are suitable for supplying the farm with 

 material for barns and additional buildings, posts, 

 poles, fuelwood, and other usable products. Cur- 

 rently, howe\'er, only a few farm woodland owners are 

 making their forest land produce to the best possible 

 advantage. How to make more farm woods produce 

 more and better timber is a major problem in Indiana 

 forestry 



Forest Resource Report No. 10, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



