The Present Forests 



^^ 



^^ 



Mississippi's forest resource has been strongly 

 altered by the growth and shifting of agricul- 

 ture for more than a century and by heavy 

 commercial logging for a half century. The forests 

 are still being changed at a rapid rate, a fact which 

 will be discussed in the next section. Here, only the 

 present forests are described. 



Forest Land 



Some 16.5 million acres out of a total of 30.3 million 

 acres in Mississippi are forest land (virtually all of it 

 classed as commercial).** The proportion of land in 

 forest varies considerably among the four Survey 

 regions, as shown by the following tabulation: 



Forest land area, 1946-48 



Thousand acres Percent of total 



Survey region: ^"""^ <"'" 



North 3, 722. 9 44 



Central 6, 020. 58 



South 4,746.4 77 



Delta 2,043.2 37 



State 16,532.5 54 



Nevertheless, with the exception of several highly 

 developed agricultural belts mainly in the Delta and 

 north Mississippi, the forest is fairly well distributed 

 within each region.^ 



Forest Types 



More than half the forest is in hardwood types 

 (fig. 11). Bottom-land hardwood makes up about 

 four-fifths of the Delta forest and occurs in the stream 

 bottoms of all regions. Upland hardwood types make 

 up more than half the forest in north Mississppi, but 

 they are also conspicuous in the other regions. The 

 loblolly-shortleaf pine type, found mainly in central 

 Mississippi, includes almost one-third of the total forest 

 acreage in the State. The longleaf-slash pine type, 

 which is the dominant type in south Mississippi, is 

 confined largely to this region. 



^ Definitions of terms will be found on p. 54. 

 5 Detailed statistics on 1 946-48 acreage — as well as on timber 

 volume, growth, and drain — are in the appendix. 



Free Stocking 



Tree stocking throws light on how well the forest 

 is utilizing the growth capacity of the forest soils. A 

 third of the forest land is well stocked; i. e., it has 70 

 percent or more of the number of growing-stock trees 

 required for full stocking. Four-tenths of the forest 

 land has 40 to 69 percent of the number of trees re- 

 quired for full stocking (medium stocked). The rest 

 of the forest is poorly stocked. Viewed as an industrial 

 plant, a large part of Mississippi's forest land has been 

 shut down or is working on a part-time basis. Its 

 productive equipment needs extensive repairs. 



Tree stocking in none of the regions deviates 

 markedly from the State averages, except in south 

 Mississippi, where the longleaf-slash pine type is con- 

 centrated (fig. 12). Here, extensive cut-over lands 

 have failed to restock to more than a scattering of trees. 

 Nearly half the forest land in south Mississippi is 

 poorly stocked. 



CENTRAL 



100 



WELL STOCKED 



JPOORLY STOCKED 



MEDIUM STOCKE 



» m 



NON STOCKED 



Figure 12. — Tree stocking in commercial forests by Survey 

 region, 1946-48. 



15 



