50 BULLETIN 272, U..S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
FOREST MANAGEMENT. 
The possibilities of cypress as a tree of large commercial impor- 
tance under forest management in the future depends very largely 
on the extent to which denuded swamp lands can be utilized. Obvi- 
ously, these lands if drained would be very valuable for agricultural 
use. Therefore a discussion of the probability of the lands oe suc- 
cessfully adapted to agriculture is a prerequisite to the consideration 
of the advantages, aim, and methods of forest management. 
FUTURE UTILIZATION OF CYPRESS LANDS. 
AREA AND OWNERSHIP OF PERMANENT SWAMP LANDS. 
Of the various classes of swamp lands requirmg drainage to fit 
them for profitable cultivation, cypress occupies the extreme class 
known as ‘‘permanent” swamps. These lands are never fit for culti- 
vation in their natural state, even during the most favorable seasons, 
and those portions that may be grazed afford forage of very uncer- 
tain value. So far as revenue is concerned, the lands may be con- 
sidered as unproductive, except for the growth of timber. The total 
area of such permanent swamp land in 10 of the States where 
cypress occurs is approximately 42,440,000 acres, distributed as 
shown in Table 14: 
TABLE 14.—Permanent swamp area in 10 of the most important cypress producing States.+ 
State. Area. Area | | State. Area. 
Acres. | Acres. 
Orig ascii iacece ee eels AS aaa 18-000;0005||@Georgia = 252-2 4a ee eee ee 1,000, 000 
WOWISIA ND Be ees Bese oo ee eee 9, 000, 00s) | Miassounl 225s. Sa hese eee ee 1,000, 000 
AvKanSasi 2s aise coh caeneas ecco ee 52002000) || pA abamares =< eece Sree ee ee 900, 000 
IMUSSISSIP PMs t= =e eee ee ces es 3; 00050002}= Vein oinig eer 2 ie 2 ee eps ys eee ee 600,000 
SouthiCarolinas: eee as- ee nese es 1,500, 000 SS 
MOxaSse a. coe a eee eee ee 1, 240, 000 Total j.:)ssesha 2 Besse ees | ee Ok 
North! Carohingsaess 22 seen aa 1,000, 000 
1U. S. Senate Document 443, Sixtieth Congress, first session, ‘Swamp Lands of the United States,” 
prepared by the Office of Experiment Stations, Department of Agriculture. 
2‘The permanent swamp lands of Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana 
where cypress occurs contain about 1,000,000 acres. 
It is interesting to note that the area shown in Table 14, much of 
which is natural cypress land,! comprises about 80 per cent of the 
lands classed as ‘permanent swamp” and 49 per cent of the entire 
wet land of all classes in the United States. 
All the more valuable southern swamp lands have passed into pri- 
vate ownership. By act of Congress, September 28, 1850, and subse- 
quent enactments, all swamp lands were granted to the various States 
in which they occurred. For the most part these were in turn sold by 
the States to private owners. Federal swamp land, unsurveyed and 
therefore unclaimed by the States, is of exceedingly small area. 
1In Florida a larger proportion of the area included is nonforested or everglade land. 
