2 Bulletin 827, V. S. Depi. of Agriculture. 
Later, the station was transferred from Collins to McNeill, Miss., 
where the work is to be conducted on a broader scale than was 
possible at Collins. 
EXTENT OF THE CUT-OVER LANDS. 
The cut-over pine lands of the South lie within the area known 
as the Coastal Plain. This section is spoken of locally as the " Piney 
Woods." It includes the southeastern portion of South Carolina, 
most of Florida, the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama, and 
Mississippi, the central and northern parts of Louisiana, and parts 
of southeastern Texas and of southern Arkansas. At present the 
total area is estimated at 100,000,000 acres and is being increased 
about 10,000,000 acres annually, as additional land is cut over. One 
company alone in Louisiana requires a cut of 80 acres daily to supply 
its mills. It is estimated that ultimately the area of the cut-over 
lands will reach 250.000,000 acres. 
A bare statement of figures does not readily present the vastness 
of such an area. When comparisons are made the cut-over lands 
appear as a veritable empire. The area represents an acreage more 
than half that of the State of Texas, or equal to the combined acreage 
of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Much of all this great area 
is unused and unproductive. 
The sandy soil of sedimentary origin which constitutes the Coastal 
Plain is the natural habitat of the long-leaf yellow pine (Pinus palus- 
tris), which once covered the territory with a heavy growth to the 
exclusion of practically all other timber, except on the alluvial land 
along streams, which is forested with hardwood trees. This species 
of pine is of first importance to the naval-stores industry, as it is 
the main species in the United States that is tapped for turpentine. 
Long-leaf pine also makes a very high grade of lumber, and since 
the late nineties lumbering has superseded all other industries in the 
section mentioned. In 1909 the cut of southern yellow pine was 36.6 
per cent and in 1913 it was 38.7 per cent of the entire cut of all 
species of the country. 1 
Because of the immense scale of lumbering operations the land has 
been rapidly denuded of the timber, and as practically all timbered 
lands were in the hands of lumbermen whose interest was in the 
timber, the lands remained as the woods crews left them — covered 
with stumps and strewn with crowns, unmerchantable logs, and small 
timber. Little thought was given to their future development as 
agricultural or grazing lands. In other words, the cut-over con- 
dition of the lands is a b} T -product of lumbering. With the end 
1 Bureau of Crop Estimates and Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
