IRGINIA’S opportunity for permanently main- 
taining a valuable forest industry, and even ex- 
panding it, lies in extensive forest lands whose 
| potentialities are at present unrealized. These po- 
_tentialities can be realized by growing more of the ma- 
| terial industry needs instead of cutting that material 
| so heavily that less good-quality timber remains each 
| year to reproduce itself. 
| Assets 
The great and essential asset is 14.4 million acres of 
| commercial forest land. With such land, the State 
'can produce adequate timber supplies for its wood- 
| using industries, provided the land is managed well. 
| The forest has high productive powers, as evidenced 
by the excess of growth over drain during the heavy 
cutting of the war years, even though much of that 
| excess growth was in less valuable species. The State 
| has an enviable fire control record, and all forest land 
| is now under organized protection. The Federal- 
| State program of assistance to timber owners in esti- 
mating and marking timber for cutting, and in sound 
| management, utilization, and marketing, has recently 
| been materially expanded. Among other important 
assets the State has extensive and diversified forest in- 
_dustries which furnish the demand for timber prod- 
ucts. As these industries feel the pinch of saw-timber 
shortage, they are backing forestry programs more and 
-more actively each year. 
Liabilitees 
On the 14.4-million-acre forest area the stands are 
| so depleted and understocked they grow only one- 
third to one-half what they could. On 3,400,000 
acres, nearly one-half of the State’s saw-timber area, 
the stands average less than 1,200 board feet per acre, 
and hence can be logged only by small “ground” mills 
turning out rough, green, and often poorly sawed lum- 
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Virginia Forest Resources and Industries 
VIRGINIA FOREST RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES 
Opportunities for Increasing the Utility 
of the Timber Resources 
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ber. These mills commonly cut and saw too many 
small trees. In one-fourth of the counties in the State, 
the average stand per acre of commercial forest land 
is only 830 board feet. One-half of the forest area 
of Virginia does not have enough timber to meet even 
the low minimum requirements for saw timber. 
Also, 15 percent (29 million cords) of the total 
sound wood volume is in cull trees. Ninety percent 
of that volume is hardwood, chiefly oaks, hickories, 
and scrub species. On the basis of area required for 
an equal volume of sound trees, these culls occupy 2 
million acres of productive forest land. ‘That area 
represents 14 percent of Virginia’s commercial forest 
land. 
In addition, too large a part of the total wood volume 
is in the smaller trees. From 55 to 82 percent of the 
sound volume in cords of the four most valuable and 
abundant species, and two-thirds of the volume of all 
species, is in trees less than 13 inches d. b. h. Such 
trees do not yield high-quality saw timber, but it is 
common practice to saw them into lumber. 
Plan of Action 
There are a number of ways of decreasing liabilities 
and increasing assets. It is a matter of changing a 
steadily deteriorating situation to a steadily improving 
one. 
Increase Volume 
The most certain method of building up stand vol- 
ume is to reduce the cut below the net growth of 
the forest under sound practices of forest manage- 
ment. This practice works well on managed forests 
under stable ownership, but in a State with nearly 13 
million acres of private forest land held by thousands 
of owners, such a prescription is difficult to follow. 
In spite of this, there are certain parts of the State, 
in certain forest types, where the cut will have to be 
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