40 FOREST RESOURCES OF TEXAS. 



CONSERVATIVE LUMBERING IN LOBLOLLY PINE FORESTS. 



It will be recalled that the loblolly area is one chiefly of mixed pine 

 and hardwoods, that it is the most densely forested area in the State, 

 and that the coast country, which it occupies, is low and flat — a vast 

 alluvial plain. 



Although forest renewal is extremely aggressive, the value of the 

 land for rice farms, sugar plantations, and other agricultural uses is 

 such that, with the influx of settlers, the greater part of it will be 

 brought under cultivation and the forests will be left to occupy only 

 the less valuable tracts. Upon these, valuable commercial timber can 

 be produced under management. 



CONSERVATIVE LUMBERING IN THE HARDWOOD FORESTS OF 

 ALLUVIAL BOTTOMS. 



River bottomlands in east Texas are in too great demand for agri- 

 cultural purposes to afford any prospect of permanent management 

 by private owners beyond the supply of local needs by woodlots. 

 Immigration is setting in at a rate that will result 'in the rapid clear- 

 ing of the land; in rnany cases the forest is being destroyed simply to 

 make wa}^ for farms. (See PL III, fig. 1 .) The present stand contains 

 vast quantities of superior hardwoods, and offers an excellent opening 

 for large lumbering concerns. 



It would be decidedly to the advantage both of the present owners, 

 who have now no adequate market for their timberlands, and of the 

 public, which would be benefited by the utilization of this valuable 

 timber resource, if the capital necessary to harvest the crop could be 

 induced to enter this somewhat neglected field; and it is to be hoped 

 that better information of its amount, location, and value may be 

 spread abroad. But the best eventual use for most of the land is 

 plainh T the production of field crops, except where the forest is needed 

 for protection against erosion and to safeguard the water supply, and 

 its preservation for the latter purposes should come not from private 

 but from State action. 



CONSERVATIVE MANAGEMENT OF WOODLOTS. 



The application of certain principles of forest management on a 

 small scale by farmers and ranchmen has large possibilities of useful- 

 ness, both public and private. The field for this is a very different 

 one from that open to large concerns organized for the management 

 of extensive forests. The latter can operate permanently onh T where 

 great tracts of timberland exist which can not profitably be farmed. 

 But even in the most fertile regions it is seldom that a farm contains 

 no patch, large or small, which could not profitably be kept as a 



