Preface 
ONGRESS, by the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of May 22, 1928, authorized the 
Cc Secretary of Agriculture to make and keep current a survey of the Nation's forest resources. 
The Forest Survey was organized by the Forest Service to carry out the provisions of the Act. 
In the Southeastern States the Forest Survey is an activity of the Division of Forest Economics 
of the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Asheville, N. C. 
The five-fold purpose of the survey is: (1) To determine the extent, location, and condition 
of forest lands, and species, quantity, and guality of timber on these lands; (2) to ascertain the 
current and probable future productivity of forest stands; (3) to determine the quantity of timber 
cut for industrial and domestic uses, and the losses from fire, insects, disease, suppression, and 
other causes; (4) to ascertain the present and probable future trend in requirements for forest 
products by all classes of consumers; and (5) to interpret these findings and correlate them with 
other economic factors as a basis for formulating public and private policies for effective and 
rational use and management of land suitable for forest production. 
Results of the Forest Survey are published in a series of reports that supply information 
needed for planning a long-time program for timber production and some detailed information of 
use in guiding forest industry development. In this report no attempt is made to fully evaluate 
the use of forests for watershed protection, wildlife, recreation, or grazing even though such services 
of the forest are of considerable importance in South Carolina. 
South Carolina was first inventoried by the Forest Survey in the period 1934-36, and the 
results were published in United States Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 
No. 552, South Carolina Forest Resources and Industries. Since then better forest management, 
changes in land use, and much heavier industrial use of timber have caused marked changes in the 
forest growing stock. The information presented here is based upon a resurvey of the State, 
made between November 1946 and March 1948. It furnishes the background for an understanding 
of the present forest conditions in South Carolina and focuses attention upon the principal forest 
problems and possible solutions 

