The Changing Forest Inventory 



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THE DESCRIPTION of Mississippi's present forests, 

 as revealed by the Forest Survey of 1946-48, 

 needs to be supplemented by an evaluation of the 

 magnitude and rate at which changes in the resource 

 are occurring. For this purpose, we can contrast find- 

 ings of the recent Survey with the first Forest Survey 

 carried out in 1932-35. 



Forest Land 



The forest land area of 16.5 million acres is 2 per- 

 cent more than it was at the time of the first Forest 

 Survey." The biggest change in forest land area took 

 place in north Mississippi. Here abandonment of 

 eroded farm land, and perhaps other factors, resulted 

 in a 16-percent increase in forest area. In the Delta, 

 on the other hand, clearing of land for agriculture was 

 the dominant factor, and forested acreage shrank by 9 

 percent. In the rest of the State, changes in forest 

 acreage were small. 



Forest Types 



At the time of the first Forest Survey, 59 percent of 

 the total forest acreage in the State was in stands 

 where pines comprised at least a fourth of the well- 

 formed dominant and codominant trees. Today, the 

 percentage is 45. About 2.2 million acres that were 

 classed as pine forest 14 years ago are now hardwood 

 forest (fig. 19). 



The acreage classed as loblolly-shortlcaf pine type 

 (including stands of either of these two pines alone) 

 has shrunk by 21 percent in 14 years. This shrinkage 

 occurred in the face of a probably substantial addition 

 to the pine type from the reversion of farm lands to 

 forest. As for the longleaf-slash pine type in south 

 Mississippi, its acreage fell 29 percent. 



While the pine forest was receding in the north, 

 central, and south regions, the area classed as upland 



' In this and other estimates of change, data from the first 

 Survey have first been adjusted, wherever necessary, to make 

 them comparable with the data from the second Survey. 



hardwood forest more than doubled in the 14 years 

 between the two Surveys. Upland hardwood ex- 

 panded, in part, by occupying newly abandoned lands, 

 especially in the north, but its chief expansion has 

 come from the reduction or elimination of the propor- 

 tion of pine in pine-hardwood stand mixtures. The 

 combination of forest industry's preference for pine in 

 logging upland sites, and the natural aggressiveness of 

 hardwoods on these sites has been mainly responsible 

 for the considerable spread of hardwood forest at the 

 expense of pine. 



Growing Stock 



Sawlog growing stock for the whole State is down 

 24 percent in 14 years — 29 percent in softwood species; 

 20 percent in hardwood (fig. 20). Declines were 

 large in all regions except south Mississippi. North 



1932-35 



1946-46 



LOBLOLLY-SHORTLEAF PINE 



2 3 4 



MILLION ACRES 



Figure 19. — Change in forest land acreage by forest type 

 between 1932-35 and 1946-48. 



19 



