Forest Land Can Grow Much More Timber 
YD) 
NE of the most significant facts revealed by 
the 1949 survey of Florida was the 70-per- 
cent increase in annual saw-timber growth 
and a doubling of the growing-stock growth com- 
- pared to 1936. This increase in growth, coupled with 
( 
the reduction in commodity drain, appears to have 
reversed the downward trend in volume; in 1948, 
growth of both saw timber and growing stock ex- 
ceeded drain. The excess of growth over drain for all 
timber 5.0 inches and larger was 2.2 million cords. The 
expansion under way in pulping capacity is expected 
to add around 1,116,000 cords to the commodity 
drain. Even with this anticipated increase in drain, 
there will still be a substantial margin of growth over 
drain. This growth and drain picture is in sharp con- 
trast to what it was in 1936 when drain on all sizes of 
timber exceeded growth by 68 percent and drain on 
saw timber was more than double the growth. 
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that 
all of the remaining surplus growth is available for 
expansion in timber use at this time. For one thing, 
as pointed out before, much of the growth is on 
young and scattered timber which will not be ready 
for harvesting for many years. Also, the turn for the 
better in Florida has taken place at a very low level 
of forest productivity, so that much of this surplus 
growth is needed to build up Florida’s badly depleted 
stock of timber. 
If adequately stocked with timber, Florida’s forest 
land could grow 2! times as much timber as it 
is now growing. In 1948, the annual growth per acre 
of commercial forest land was 65 board feet of saw 
timber, or 0.3 of a cord of all timber. Even though 
a large part of this land is rather poor from a timber- 
producing standpoint, with only a moderate im- 
provement in forest practices, the annual growth 
could easily be increased to 150 board feet, or 0.6 of 
a cord per acre. 
Two-Thirds of Land is Forested 
In 1949, 62 percent, 21.5 million acres, of the 
| total land area in the State was classed as commer- 
The Timber Supply Situation in Florida 
KKK 
CLASSES OF LAND 
MILLION 
ACRES 
COMMERCIAL 
FOREST LAND FOREST 
COMMERCIAL 2123 
NONCOMMERCIAL lS, 
AGRICULTURAL 
ACTIVE 3.3 
IOLE kee 
ALL OTHER 7A 
TOTAL LAND AREA 345 
COMMERCIAL 
FOREST LAND 
AGRI.-IDLE 
Ficure 17.—Land area of Florida, by broad use class, 1949. 
cial forest land (fig. 17). An additional 4 percent, 
1.5 million acres, was called noncommercial because 
it was too infertile or too wet to grow timber of com- 
mercial size. Only 10 percent was in active agricul- 
tural use. Land previously cultivated but now idle or 
abandoned amounted to 1.1 million acres. About 416,- 
000 acres of this is in Northeast Florida where tim- 
ber-growing sites are good enough to justify planting 
to pine. By far the largest part of the remaining land 
in the State is marsh, some of which is used for 
cattle grazing. 
The northern part of the State is most heavily 
forested (fig. 18). All but 8 of the 37 counties in 
this area have 75 percent or more of their area in 
commercial forest land. A number of counties, Baker, 
Liberty, Flagler, Clay, and Calhoun, are more than 
90 percent forested. 
Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, and Orange Counties of 
Central Florida also contain a high proportion of 
commercial forest land. Southward, in the vicinity 
of Lake Okeechobee and along the east coast, com- 
mercial forest land is replaced, in large part, by tree- 
less prairies and marshes and by nonproductive for- 
ests composed of stunted trees and shrubs. Only 28 
percent of the area south of Lake Okeechobee is 
commercial forest land and most of it is basically 
low in productivity; present conditions of repeated 
burning make the land even less productive. 
The area of forest land has changed very little 
23 
