Private Ownership Determines Forest-Land Policy 
Ninety-three percent of the forest land in South 
Carolina is owned by thousands of individual and 
corporate owners. Their reasons for owning forest land 
differ greatly. Forest land to some owners means a place 
to hunt and fish, to others a source of raw material, 
while to still a great many others, forest land means 
merely idle land. Often, people become forest owners 
quite unintentionally. In buying a farm, forest land is 
often part of the property and is acquired with no 
thought of managing it for forest crops. 
Large Ownership Better Adapted to Good Forestry 
Of the 4.2 million acres, forest and nonforest, in all 
private properties of 1,000 acres or more in South 
Carolina in 1946, 1.8 million acres are owned by people 
associated with the wood-using industries, as indicated 
in the following tabulation: 
Area owned? 


Class of ownership:” Pee Pipteni 
Pari er porns csp eee caer at ares 1,035,600 25 
Lumber company and lumberman.. 1,026,800 25 
Pulp =company/ 5, setomcnt eee 642,900 16 
Other.‘forest/industry 54.0. 102,900 2 
Otheriownerships: ase eee 1,342,400 32 
Totaly. Stace Sees eee: 4,150,600 100 
* Data taken from county tax rolls. as of January 1, 1946. 
* Includes forest and nonforest land on properties 1,000 acres 
and larger in size. 
Since these owners are lumbermen, pulp companies, 
veneer plant operators and the like, they have reason 
to grow timber to assure themselves of a future supply. 
For the most part they also have the financial strength 
to undertake sustained-yield forestry. While present 
forest practices on a large part of this land still leave 
much to be desired, improvement in the past few years 
has been substantial. 
The pulp companies — with a high stake in future 
timber supplies because of the heavy long-term invest- 
ment in plants —are taking the lead in putting land 
under good forest management. A survey of cutting 
practices in 1945 revealed that nearly all the cutting on 
pulp company lands was classed as good.° Cutting 
practices on lands owned by lumber manufacturing 
enterprises, in the main, were classed as fair to poor. 
Cutting on all other ownerships was predominantly poor. 
Small Ownershi ps Predominate 
Only a small part of the forest land is affected by 
the better practices on lands owned by pulp and paper 
companies, for these ownerships in 1947 accounted for 
only about 6 percent of the total forest land. In 1945, 
78 percent of the private commercial forest land was in 
ownerships of less than 5,000 acres. Over 100,000 
properties averaged 69 acres of forest land. 
Many obstacles to good forest management are inherent 
in small ownerships. In the first place, growing trees 
can at best be a sideline to the owner with only 50 to 
100 acres of forest land. To the farmer, the farm 
woodlot is a minor and somewhat erratic source of 
income. Frequently, he lacks not only knowledge of the 
amount and value of the timber he has, but also 
financial incentive, the technical skill, and capital for 
handling timberlands. Pressure of low income to 
convert timber into cash encourages destructive cutting 
of timber stands. As a result, only a few of the small 
ownerships are under forest management. In 1945, 
only 15 percent of the commercial forest land on farms 
in the State was receiving the bare essentials of manage- 
ment. Thus, the smaller forest landowner, the main 
owner, must be encouraged to grow more and better- 
quality timber if South Carolina is to utilize the high 
timber-growing potential of its forest land. 
° Good cutting requires good silviculture that leaves the land 
in possession of desirable species in condition for vigorous 
growth in the immediate future. Fair cutting marks the begin- 
ning of cutting practices which will maintain on the land a 
reasonable stock of growing timber in species that are desirable 
and marketable. Poor cutting leaves the land with a limited 
means for natural reproduction, often in the form of poor- 
quality trees of undesirable species. 
18 Forest Resource Report No. 3, U. S. Department of Agriculture | 
