LONGLEAF PINE. 49 
acre. During the 3-year period, the loss was 41 trees, mostly from 
24 to 30 inches in diameter, scaling an average of 654 feet each, or 
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 about 4 trees of smaller sizes. No evidence 
appeared of unusual wind or insect damage having been wrought. 
TIMBER AND LIVE STOCK. 
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 
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. 
upper coastal plain soils is adapted to farming, and that the bulk 
of the land is better suited to other uses. The great flatwoods sec- 
tion, which was originally forested, chiefly with longleaf pine, 
offers little promise of being wanted extensively for cultivated 
crops. Only 10 to 15 per cent of this natural soil division and of 
the near-by lands is now in farms. The utilization in the near 
future of these nonproductive lands for timber growing and for 
grazing purposes is unquestionably the only logical solution of the 
problem (PL 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- 
11 Agriculture Bulletin 827, " The Cut-over Pine Lands of the South for Beef Cattle 
Production," 
