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1949 
HARDWOODS 
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BILLION BOARD FEET 
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1934-36 | 
1949 
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BILLION CUBIC FEET 
Ficure 13.—Volume of growing stock 5.0 inches d.b.h. and 
larger in Florida, by species group, 1934-36 and 1949. 
west Florida has not changed much. The volume of 
growing stock 5.0 inches and larger has remained 
about the same in the Northeast, but increased by 
10 percent in the Northwest. Practically all of the 
decrease in pine volume occurred in the central and 
southern parts of the State. In these areas combined, 
“pine saw timber dropped 36 percent; all pine timber, 
| 25 percent. Undoubtedly, an important part of this 
drop in pine volume is the result of clearing forest 
land for pasture, citrus orchards, and other agricul- 
tural crops in Central Florida. 
_ Cypress volumes decreased markedly in all parts 
| of the State except in the central part, where both 
| the total volume and the saw-timber volume in- 
creased by 20 percent. This increase is due in part 
to the rapid growth of small timber into commercial 
sizes during the 12-year period between surveys. 
These small second-growth trees do not, of course, 
yield the durable high-grade lumber usually desired 
when cypress is specified as a construction material. 
Hardwood volume, like cypress, showed large de- 
The Timber Supply Situation in Florida 
| 
creases in all parts of the State except in the central 
part, where the volume has remained about the same. 
Although timber volumes have decreased mainly 
because of heavy cutting, the increase in defective 
timber has also contributed to the decline of cypress 
and hardwoods. Many trees which qualified as sound 
trees at the time of the first survey have since become 
culls. The volume of hardwood culls has increased 
by 82 percent, cypress cull volume by 45 percent 
(17). More hardwood cull volume is due, in part, to 
an increase of nearly 200 million cubic feet in the 
volume of scrub oaks, species which at the present 
time are used for very little except fuel wood. An- 
other 200 million cubic feet can be attributed to the 
increase in volume of sound cull trees of other spe- 
cies. However, more than half of the increase was 
the result of more volume in rotten culls; many trees 
which contained some rot during the first survey have 
since become too rotten to qualify as sound trees. 
Growth has also increased the volume in cull trees. 
In contrast to the reduction in timber which took 
place between surveys, a comparison of growth and 
commodity drain showed that during the year 1948 
the saw-timber and pole-timber volume of pine, cy- 
press, and hardwoods increased for the State as a 
whole (fig. 14). Growing-stock volume increased by 
about 2 million cords, and saw-timber volume by 188 
million board feet. However, in certain areas com- 
modity drain exceeded growth. Pine volume contin- 
ued to decline in Central and South Florida and in 
Duval, Gilchrist, Holmes, and Suwannee Counties 
of North Florida (fig. 15). Commodity drain in ex- 
cess of growth in Central Florida was partly a result 
of large-scale land clearing for citrus orchards and 
improved pastures; elsewhere it merely represented 
harvesting in excess of growth. While these growth 
and commodity drain comparisons are for a single 
year, they do suggest a reversal, temporarily at least, 
of the downward trend in timber volume. 
This improvement in the growth and commodity 
drain balance is the result of an increase in the 
volume of growth coupled with a reduction in com- 
modity drain (fig. 16). Between 1936 and 1948, 
annual saw-timber growth increased by 70 percent, 
and growing-stock growth more than doubled. 
Most of the increase in growth took place in the 
pines. The large increase in pine growth was prin- 
cipally the result of a big increase in young pine 
timber. The number of 2- and 4-inch pines doubled 
between the two surveys; the number of pole-timber 
19 
