Preface 
HROUGH the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928, Congress authorized the Secre- 
[2 of Agriculture to conduct a comprehensive survey of the forest resources 
of the United States. The Forest Survey was organized by the Forest Service to carry out 
the provisions of the Act through the Regional Forest Experiment Stations. In the South- 
eastern 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 Forest Survey is (1) to make a field inventory of the 
present supply of standing timber, (2) to ascertain the rate at which this supply is being 
increased through growth, (3) to determine the rate at which it is being reduced through 
industrial and domestic uses, fire and other causes, (4) to determine the present consump- 
tion and the probable future trend in requirements for forest products, and (5) to interpret 
and correlate these findings to aid in the formulation of private and public policies of 
forest land management. 
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 localized infor- 
mation of use in guiding forest industry development. In this report no attempt is made to 
fully evaluate the use of forests for wildlife, recreation, or grazing; these uses are discussed 
only as they affect the timber supply. 
Florida was inventoried by the Forest Survey in the period 1934-36 and reports 
presenting the findings have been published. Since then, cutting, forest growth, better fire 
protection, better forest management, changes in land use, and other factors have caused 
changes in the forest growing stock that can only be measured accurately by on-the-ground 
surveys. [he information presented here is based upon a resurvey of the State, made 
between June 1948 and July 1949. It furnishes the background for an understanding of 
the present forest conditions in Florida and focuses attention upon the principal forest 
problems and what needs to be done to solve them. 
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