
FiGuRE 30.— A million and a half acres of forest land are less than 10 percent stocked; many stands are left virtually denuded 
following heavy cutting. 
the boll weevil infestation, touched off a wave of 
abandonment shortly after World War I. Between 
1919 and 1924, acreage of cropland harvested in the 
Piedmont dropped more than 600,000 acres, a 25- 
percent decline. Many of these abandoned fields seeded 
in quickly with pine and are now covered with dense 
stands of pole-size timber. Other areas where seed 
source was less plentiful restocked much more slowly. 
Frequently, only a few scattered trees became established 
at first, and complete restocking was delayed until 
these initial invaders began to bear seed. 
Many of these old-field pine stands are extremely 
dense. Some of these small trees will reach pole size, 
and thinnings from these stands can help to meet the 
demand for pulpwood and fence posts. However, a large 
share of the small trees will drop out of the picture 
before they are large enough to make merchantable 
products. For this reason, it is necessary to discount 
the contribution that will be made to future saw timber 
by the present large quantity of saplings in this part 
of the State. 
In the Piedmont, the role of hardwood saplings in 
building up the pole-timber basal area is much the same 
Timber Supply Outlook in South Carolina 
as in the Coastal Plain. They are generally of poor - 
form, poor quality, and often of low-value species. In 
the absence of stand-improvement measures, only a small 
proportion will qualify as desirable growing stock. 
The distribution of basal area by size classes in the 
Coastal Plain and in the Piedmont represents two 
rather distinct conditions. Temporarily at least, declin- 
ing stocks of saw-timber size trees in the Coastal Plain 
will be further aggravated by a shortage of pole timber. 
In the Piedmont, the relatively large supply of young 
timber will go a long way toward easing the task of 
building up the extremely low supply of saw timber. 
Forty Percent of Forest Area Poorly Stocked 
The present stocking is not only short of the optimum 
and poorly distributed by size of timber, but it is also 
poorly distributed on the ground. Stands vary in stock- 
ing from completely denuded areas (fig. 30) to dense 
overstocked thickets. Over 414 million acres, or 40 
percent of the total forest area, is less than 40 percent 
stocked. Fourteen percent is under 10 percent stocked 
25 
