64 
BULLETIN 1061. U. 
DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE 
an average loss of '222 board feet per acre. Most of the trees were 
killed by insects or blown down. Fires, which had run every year, 
caused the death of four trees of smaller sizes. Xo evidence of 
unusual wind or insect damage appeared. 
TIMBER AND LIVESTOCK 
A large lumber company, operating exclusively in southern Missis- 
sippi and eastern Louisiana, after a general survey has estimated 
that about one-quarter of its cut-over lands, lying mostly on the 
upper Coastal Plain is adapted to farming, and that the rest of the 
land is better suited to the production of forests. The great flat- 
woods section, which was originally forested, chiefly with long- 
leaf pine, offers little promise of being wanted extensively for cul- 
tivated crops. Only about 10 per cent of this flatwoods section is 
now in farms. The utilization in the near future of these nonpro- 
On the poorer lands no other crop promises to pay 
so well as timber growing. 
The chief sources of future economic production 
on the vast area of cut-over lands of the South will 
unquestionably be agriculture, grazing, and timber 
growing. The advantages for investments in the 
growing of pine timber in the southern region are: 
(1) An abundance of land of relatively low value in 
excess of all that can possibly be used during the 
next few decades for all other purposes; (2) a very 
long growing season, resulting in rapid timber pro- 
duction; (3) easy logging and shipping conditions; 
and (4) relative proximity to the large northern and 
eastern markets, 
ductive lands for timber growing and for grazing purposes is unques- 
tionably the only logical solution of the problem (PI. XX). 11 
The cut-over lands of the South that are practically idle because 
they contain little or no forest reproduction or young growth are 
estimated at not less than 30.000.000 acres. Of this amount by far 
the greater portion consists of longleaf pine lands, an area equiva- 
lent to more than all the forest lands of France. The amount of 
permanent " forest soil " in the South, or land which will eventually 
be found to be better adapted to forest purposes than to any other 
use. is not known, but the area is extensive. Plate XXI shows 
the kind of timber which, if it is grown at all iu the future, will 
probably be produced under some form of public land control or 
ownership. Either acting alone or in cooperation with the Federal 
Government, the State, after acquiring tracts of the poorer classes 
of southern pine cut-over lands, would doubtless be in the best 
11 IT. S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 
South for Beef Cattle Production." 
•• The Cut-over Pine Lands of the 
