With the introduction of the cotton 
gin in 1793, cotton yields went up, 
putting pressure on the forests. By 
1850, plantations along the lower 
Mississippi River had replaced 
native magnolia and beech trees. 
Mississippi, to Saint Francisville, Lou- 
isiana, produced some of the greatest 
cotton yields in the South. One result 
of increased cultivation of the land 
was a rapid change in forest cover 
and composition. As plantations ex- 
panded, majestic forests of giant mag- 
nolia ( Magnolia grandiflora) and 
beech (Fagus grandifolia) trees, re- 
corded in the first land surveys of 
the area, were replaced by open fields. 
By 1850, the federal government 
was conducting an agricultural census 
every ten years. Using decennial cen- 
sus data, we can estimate the pro- 
portion of land remaining in virgin 
forest, that in cultivation, and that 
reverting to secondary forest. These 
records show that a major decrease 
in forest area occurred between 1750 
and 1850 in the South. By 1880, less 
than 35 percent of the Southeast re- 
mained in virgin forest, concentrated 
for the most part in the southern Ap- 
palachian Mountains, the Mississippi 
River bottomlands, the Ozark and 
Ouachita mountains of Arkansas, and 
the Gulf Coastal Plain pinelands. Be- 
ginning in the 1890s, the remaining 
tracts of virgin timber in the southern 
Appalachians and the Gulf Coastal 
Plain were exploited for lumber, tur- 
pentine, and shipbuilding. Some 
wooden structures from this era, made 
from the valuable and decay-resistant 
heartwood of virgin longleaf pine 
(Pinus palustris), are still standing on 
the coastal plain. 
Some forest recovery had occurred 
after the Civil War as the average size 
of farms decreased and sharecropping 
increased. The resultant old-field suc- 
cession on abandoned land led to the 
development of secondary forests in 
the southeastern United States. In the 
Piedmont of Georgia, for example, up 
to 30 percent of the land area reverted 
to forests at this time. Even with this 
partial recovery of secondary forests 
in the Piedmont, however, the net re- 
sult of removal of virgin forest, to- 
gether with cultivation, erosion, and 
impoverishment of the soil, was a pro- 
nounced depletion of carbon reserves. 
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