Treesearch

Foresters ahve long recognized the need for a better method of appraising standing timber in terms of quality as well as volume of lumber that trees may be expected to produce. Because the range in price between high-grade lumber and low-grade lumber is extremely wide, a stand of high-quality timber is much more valuable than a low-quality stand. In spite of this, estimating methods commonly used today give little consideration to quality

Early, effects of partial cutting on diameter growth in bottomland hardwood forests have been measured recently near Vance, Mississippi, according to a report by J. W. Johnson of the Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans, LA.

Of the more common woods native to the South, the heartwood of osageorange (bois d'arc), black locust, red mulberry, cedar, and baldcypress is most desirable and makes good fence posts without any preservative treatment. The heartwood of other southern tree species, and all sapwood is much less durable and will give only a few years of service when used for fence posts unless treated with a preservative. When properly treated, however, there is little to choose between different species

In sawlog growing stock, both softwood and hardwood declinded 2 percent between the Forest surveys. The 1949 saw-timber volumes are 11.3 and 6.9 billion board feet, respectively.

Ecologicall y the forests of pure or nearly pure southern pine that r ange so extensively along the central and southern Atlantic coastal r egion are sub-climax types . Thus the natural tendency is for our pine fo r ests to be r eplaced eventually by the climax hardwood species : maple, beech, oaks , and hickories .

During the winter of 1948 and again in 1949, some 3,200 bald-cypress seedlings were planted in a cut-over cypress and tupelo gum swamp near Choctaw, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana.

Pulpwood production in the seven states of Southern Forest survey territory reached another all-time high in the 1948. Total production was 5,025,900 cords, an increase of 14 percent over 1947. Each of the seven states showed an increase (table 1).

Climate in the generally used sense is determined by physical conditions over which man has no control, namely: latitude, prevailing wind, topography, and nearness to the ocean or continental interior. Locally, certain elements of climate, such as temperature, wind, evaporation, and rainfall, are modified by altitude, topography, direction of exposure, bodies of water, and vegetation. The extent of these modifications defines and characterizes the local climate.