Among other private owners, farmers own 40 million acres 
of timberland; corporate owners, 16 million acres; and 
other private individuals, 66 million acres. These acreages 
represent approximately one-fourth, one-tenth, and one- 
third, respectively, of all the timberland in the South. 
Ownership of timberland by individuals operating farms 
tends to be concentrated in North Carolina, Georgia, and 
Virginia in the Southeast region and Alabama, Mississippi, 
and Tennessee in the South Central region. A third of all 
the corporate-owned timberland is found in Florida and 
Louisiana. The predominant forest management type on tim- 
berland owned by other private owners is upland hardwoods. 
Bottomland hardwoods, however, represent a relatively 
large share of the timberland held by corporate owners. 
Many of the private ownerships in the South represent small 
individual holdings. According to a 1978 survey of private 
ownerships in the South (Birch and others 1982), 92 per- 
cent of the ownership units were less than 100 acres. These 
small landholdings, accounted for only a fifth of the timber- 
land area, however. Ownerships in the West Gulf 
(Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma) and the East 
Gulf (Georgia, Florida), where industry or corporate tracts 
are more common, tended to be larger than in the South At- 
lantic (Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) and 
Central Gulf States (Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi), 
where there were higher concentrations of farm ownerships. 
Over half of the timberland in the West Gulf and East Gulf 
was in units larger than 1,000 acres, whereas only a third 
of the timberland in the South Atlantic and Central Gulf was 
in units this large. 
Public Ownerships—Only 10 percent of the timberland in 
the South is publicly owned. These lands include the na- 
tional forests, State forests and wildlife refuges, and other 
Federal, State, county, or municipal lands. National forests 
occupy 10.8 million acres, about 60 percent of the publicly 
owned land. Over half of the national forest timberland is 
located in Arkansas, Virginia, Mississippi, and North 
Carolina. In the Southeast region, national forest lands con- 
sist primarily of upland hardwood forest types in the Appala- 
chian Mountains. Natural pine is the predominant forest type 
on national forest lands in the South Central region, al- 
though upland hardwoods and mixed pine—hardwoods also 
cover large areas. 
Southwide, over 7 million acres of timberland are owned 
by other public entities. These lands tend to be natural pine 
or upland hardwoods in the Southeast. In the South Cen- 
tral region, large areas of bottomland hardwoods as well as 
upland hardwoods are in these other public ownerships. 
Volume and Value of Roundwood Timber Products 
Estimates of the Volume and Value of Roundwood 
Timber Products 
The timber harvested from the timberland of the South is 
processed initially as logs, bolts, and other roundwood 
products. Most roundwood production comes from growing 
stock on timberland, although this supply is supplemented 
by the removal of dead, rough, rotten, and small trees, 
stumps, tops, and limbs, and trees from fencerows, urban 
areas, and other nontimberland sources. In 1984, an esti- 
mated 7.5 billion cubic feet of roundwood timber products 
were harvested in the South. Over 5 billion cubic feet of this 
volume came from softwood species, primarily southern 
pine, and close to 2.5 billion cubic feet came from a vari- 
ety of hardwood species (app. table 1.2). 
The value of standing timber or the trees from which these 
products were cut was over $3 billion, $2.7 billion for soft- 
woods and $400 million for hardwoods (app. table 1.3). 
This amount, the stumpage value, represents the value that 
landowners received for the sale of their timber. When the 
value added from harvesting the timber and transporting it 
to rail sidings, concentration yards, or other local points of 
delivery is included, the value of roundwood timber output 
in the South exceeded $6 billion in 1984. Delivered val- 
ues were approximately $4.5 billion for softwood products 
and $1.6 billion for hardwood products (app. table 1.4). 
The value at local points of delivery of the 
roundwood—sawlogs, veneer logs. 
pulpwood, fuelwood, poles. piling, fence 
posts and other round products—produced 
in the South in 1984 was $6.1 billion. 
