Forest Land Management 



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THE CONDITION of Mississippi's forests and the 

 recent changes in inventory indicate an urgent 

 need to improve timber management. This 

 need is centered on private lands. Of the 16.5 mil- 

 lion acres of commercial forest land in the State, only 

 1.7 million acres are held by the public and the bulk 

 of the public lands is well managed. While most of 

 the county-owned forest land (0.4 million acres) is 

 not formally managed, the national forests ( 1 .0 mil- 

 lion acres) and most of the other Federal and State 

 lands (0.3 million acres) are rebuilding. 



Except for county forest land, which has been held 

 by the counties for many decades, most public land 

 was acquired during the 1930's. It was largely de- 

 pleted forest, much of it in no better condition than 

 the average of private holdings. Yet now, the public 

 forest has a higher proportion of saw-timber stands 

 than does the privately owned forest, and more sawlog 

 and total volume per acre. 



Ownership 



Public 



Private 



46 



35 



553 



456 



2,391 



1,705 



Saw-timber stands . percent . 



Volume per acre: 



Total growing stock cu. ft.. 



Sawlog growing stock bd. ft. . 



The public forests can be counted on for increasing 

 supplies of timber in the future, but if the forest 

 resource trends in Mississippi are to be reversed and 

 an approach made toward sustaining or expanding 

 forest industry, that effort must be centered on pri- 

 vately owned forest land. 



The Level of Private Forest Management 



Timber management on privately owned land was 

 appraised in 1947-48 in a study of Mississippi forest 

 management.® This study was not a part of the Forest 



* A detailed report on forest landownership and manage- 

 ment in central Mississippi, made in cooperation with the 

 Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station, was published. 

 This study was later supplemented by similar work in the 

 other regions of Mississippi. 



Survey, but its findings are highly useful In interpreting 

 the Survey results. Management was rated on the 

 basis of cutting practices (including related silvicul- 

 tural measures) and fire protection. In south Missis- 

 sippi grazing damage to tree seedlings and saplings 

 was evaluated along with fire damage. 



Gutting is an important phase of management be- 

 cause the way in which it is done determines, to a 

 large extent, the subsequent development of the 

 forest: the speed and adequacy of reproduction, the 

 kind of tree reproduction, the species composition and 

 quality of stands, the rapidity of growth in residual 

 trees. The role of fire is less clearly recognized. Pre- 

 scribed burning can be a useful tool in the longleaf- 

 slash pine type and sometimes in other forest types 

 for obtaining desired tree reproduction, controlling 

 disease, and forestalling the damage that comes from 

 uncontrolled fire. But most fires are very injurious 

 to Mississippi's forest. 



Wildfire destroys seedlings and small trees by the 

 millions (fig.26). It kills or wounds larger trees and 

 exposes them to damage from disease and insects. 

 Repeated wildfire, as well as cutting, has been im- 

 portant in eliminating pine from many upland stands 



Table 3. — Rating of management, cutting,^ and fire protection 2 on 

 privately owned forest land in Mississippi, 1947-48 



Rating 



Management 



Cutting 



Fire pro- 

 tection 





Percent 



1 



4 



23 



41 



24 



7 



Percent 



2 

 10 

 21 

 26 

 32 

 9 



Percent 



3 



18 

 35 



7 

 17 

 20 



Good 





Poor ... ... 



Very poor 





Total 



100 



100 



100 







1 Management and cutting apply to 13,423,000 acres. Properties on which 

 no commercial cutting occurred during the past 10 years or during the present 

 owners' tenure were not given a cutting classification. 



2 Fire protection applies to the 14,785,400 acres of commercial forest in private 

 ownership. 



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