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OCCASIONAL PAPER 112

AUGUST 1948

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GET YOUR MONEY'S WORTH
FROM FORESTRY

By

R.R. Reynolds

SOUTHERN FOREST EXPERIMENT STATION
Chas. A. Connaughlon, Director
New Orleans, La.

(ar YOUR MONEY'S WORTH FROM FORESTRYI/

By R« Ro Reynolds

Southern Forest Experiment Station

Intensive forest management in the South dates from about 1935.
Altogether we have made excellent progress^ and as a region should be
proud of the fact that we have more forest land under real management
than any other section of the country. The companies making up the
pulpwood industry in the South are to be compljjnented on having placed
a very high percentage of their lands under management and on the ef-
fort they have made to sell better cutting practices to small timber-
land owners.

Altho\igh accomplishments have been many, there is still a huge
job to be done before all commercial forest land has the fire protec-
tion and management so necessary to the well-being of all the people
of the South. The Reappraisal of the forest situation made by the
U. S. Forest Service in 1945 and 1946 indicated what a large job we
have to do in the South before we can begin to realize the possibil-
ities offered us by good land, a long growing season, good species,
and favorable markets. The Reappraisal Report indicated that large
owners (holding 50,000 acres or more) are, in general, doing a cred-
itable job of managing their timber lands. Sixty-six percent of the
cutting on lumber company lands was of fair to high order. Cutting
on pulp company holdings was even better; 89 percent of it was of
fair to high order.

Those of us who are managing timberland, however, often lose
sight of the fact that large ownerships make up only a relatively
small percentage of the total forest land in the South. Actually,
large ownerships number only 219 and control only 23 million acres
of forest land. Contrasted to this, owners of small holdings number

1/ Paper delivered at the Southern Pulpwood Conservation Associ-
ation meeting at Atlanta, Georgia, January 28, 1946.

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1^650,000 and control 122 million acres of forest land. At the
time of the Reappraisal^ 74 percent of the cutting on these small
holdings was poor or destructive. Since the pulp industry has
dealings with many of these owners, the industry can have a great
influence on the type of management practiced. In fact, the in-
dustry has a chance to help itself by helping these small owners
to realize greater returns through good forest management.

Even though owners of large acreages of forest land have
accomplished a great deal in the past 10 years, this is no time
for any of us, whether State, Federal, or private, to swell up
with pride and assume that everything is known about forest man-
agement. Neither have we any right to assume that the management
we are practicing is intensive management and that we are getting
all the returns per acre that it is possible to get. Actually,
we are only getting about half our money* s worth from our so-called
intensively managed stands. This means that owners of large acre-
ages of forest land as well as owners of small tracts are losing
money every day — -plenty of it.

I would like to back up this conclusion by describing some
of the results that have been obtained during the last 10 years
from studies under way on the Crossett Experimental Forest. As
most of you know, the Experimental Forest is a part of the Southern
Forest Experiment Station. The original unit of the forest was
given to the U, S. Forest Service by the Crossett Limiber Company.
The experimental work deals with problems of the upland loblolly-
shortleaf pine-hardwood type.

Low-Grade Hardwoods a Big Problem

When the area now contained in the Experimental Forest was
accepted in 1934> the tract had a fairly good stand of second-
growth pine ranging from 4 to 20 inches in diameter and averaging
about 3^300 board feet (Doyle scale), or 14 cords per acre.

In addition to the pine, the stand also contained a very
large number of low-grade hardwoods of many species. Some of these
were of quite large size. Most of them were from about 3 to 10 in-
ches in diameter. Many of them had come in as a result of the
opening up of the stands by the heavy cutting of 1915 o Others were
a result of repeated uncontrolled fires that kept out the pine and
favored the hardwood.

In some few places, these low-grade hardwoods occupied only a
small portion of the effective pine growing space. In other places,
they covered whole areas solidly, leaving little or no chance for
pine to become established or for the pine already present to grow.

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It has been estimated that on the average these weed trees were oc-
cupying or would soon occupy nearly 50 percent of the growing space*

The Crossett Branch has accomplished some quite remarkable
things by a hardwood removal program o Today there are dense stands
of pine of near-pulpwood size on areas that in 1939 were almost com-
pletely taken over by the hardvroods* In these areas, there are at
least 3 cords of pulpwood-size pine material per acre at the end of
the first 10-year period* Furthermore, these stands are just get-
ting into condition and, if handled correctly, will produce very
good incomes for the next 50 to 60 years without an additional gir-
dling operation* Reasonably well-stocked stands of pine will grow
500 board feet or 1 cord or more per acre per year* Did it pay to
eliminate the poor-grade hardwoods?

At the present time, pine stumpage west of the Mississippi
commonly ranges between $20 and $40 per M board feet, or from $2*00
to $3«50 per standard cord for pulpwood* If a relatively low value
of $20 per M for sawlogs, or $2*50 per cord for pulpwood, is used
and applied to the annual growth of 500 board feet of saw timber,
or to 1 cord of pulpwood, then every year that low-grade hardwoods
are allowed to occupy half of the pine stands at Crossett we are
losing $5 per acre in saw-timber stands or $1*25 per acre in pulp-
•wood' stands* Other timber land owners are likewise losing this po-
tential income* This loss is just about as real as if it were com-
ing out of the owner *s pocket because he already has a large invest-
ment in land, timber, and carrying charges* Poisoning or girdling
the hardv/oods cost $1 to $3 per acre at Crossett so the value of
the 3 cords of pulpwood grown in the first 10 years following hard-
wood elimination is worth about three times this cost*

I do not mean to suggest that all hardwoods should be removed
from all our timber land* On good hardv/ood sites, the better hard-
woods, such as white oak, yellow poplar, and ash, probably will yield
more income than pine* Even on the better pine sites, commercially
valuable hardwoods may be very desirable in mixture with pine* Some
hardwoods are needed in pine stands to keep up the fertility of the
soil* At the same time, low-grade hardwoods should very definitely
be kept under control on pine sites because they are causing a huge
present and potential loss of income*

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Planting Will Pay in Many Cases

There are many, many acres of good pine growing land from v/hich
all the pine has been cut, leaving no way for the area to reseed nat-
urally. Thousands of other acres of abandoned farm land in our pine
types will require a good many years to reseed naturally. And, fin-
ally, there are many thousands of other acres with a very light stock-
ing of small trees that are producing only a small fraction of their
potential amount of forest products. Some of these open areas are
within shouting distance of some of our pulp mills. Apparently, no
effort is being made to plant them. Undoubtedly, it is hoped that
such areas will reseed naturall^r to a full stand. While the ovjners
are waiting for that to happen, they are buying wood from 200 to 300
miles away and paying a freight rate of §3 to |5 per cord.

Timberland owners can, v/ith modern tree planters, plant such
areas at a cost of $S to §12 per acre. Thus the freight that is be-
ing paid on 2 to 3 cords of wood hauled these long distances would
pay for planting one of these nearby idle acres on which 1 to 2 cords
of pulpwood can be grovm annually. Again the owners are losing |2 to
§4 of potential gross income from stumpage every year that they wait.
The only excuse for not developing a dense stand immediately is a
plan to go out of business within 15 to 20 years.

High Returns Possible from Well-Spaced, Immature Trees

It is quite common practice for many small savmiills as well as
some of the larger ones to obtain their logs by clear-cutting the
stands to a very lov/ diameter limit. The same is true for a large
percentage of the pulpi-^rood operators in the South, Contractors v/ill
buy stands "lump sum" from the o\mers and then clear-cut them of ev-
erything that will make a pulpv;ood stick with a 3-inch top diameter.

Providing enough seed trees are reserved, such a cutting pol-
icy is not bad if the stands in question are even-aged and the trees
are mature for the products wanted. There is nothing wrong with even-
aged management; it m.ay be the type of management best suited to the
production of pulpv/ood. Hov/ever, for every example of clear-cutting
in mature or near-mature stands, there are 100 examples of the clear-
cutting of all-aged and wholly immature even-aged stands that have
just developed to the point v^here they will yield good annual returns
to the owner for a long period of time if properly managed.

I realize that the owners of the stands in question often v/ish
to have their woods clear-cut and think they are making a smart deal.
In many other cases, the contractors will only buy on a clear-cutting
deal or at least talk the owners into such a proposition.

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But Just how good a deal is such a cutting policy in iimnature
stands? Well-spaced pine trees in the South v/ill usually increase
in diameter at an average rate of 1 inch in 3 years or 3-1/3 inches
in 10 years. Four-inch trees vdll increase 114 percent in volume
and value as pulpwood in grov/ing to 5 inches in size.

This means that these 4-inch trees are earning interest on the
investment of 3S percent per year I Similarly, 5-inch trees growing 1
inch in diameter in 3 years are increasing in value at a rate of 2?
percent per year. Under the same conditions of growth and again assuTii-
ing the trees are to be sold for pulpwood, 6-inch trees will increase
in value at 23 percent per year; 8-inch trees v/ill make 12 percent per
year; 10- inch trees vdll make 9 percent a year, and 12-inch trees vdll
make 7 percent a year.

If we are considering the production of savj- timber, and iie as-
sume that good, well-spaced trees vdll grew 1 inch in diameter in 3
years, a 9-inch tree vdll increase 46 percent per year in volume and
value in grovdng to 10 inches. Ten-inch trees vdll increase at the
rate of 30 percent per year; 14-inch trees vdll increase annually at
the rate of 13 percent; and l6-inch trees vdll increase 10 percent a
year.

Now — do you knovr of any reasonably safe investment you can make
vdth the money obtained from trees of these sizes that vdll yield a
return from 10 to 40 percent per year? If so, an owner is Justified
in clear-cutting good, fast-grovdng, inmature trees of the sizes in-
dicated. If not — and ‘*not** is the usual ansv/er — then these trees
should be allowed to grow until they are financially mature or until
they slow up in grovrth and earn a relatively low rate of interest.

There is every reason for thinning Immature stands in order
to remove the suppressed, diseased, and Ijmbj^ trees, and to give the
good trees room to grov/. Such a thinning is usually necessary every
few years. But harvesting the good trees before they are 10 to 12
inches in diameter on a pulpwood operation and from 18 to 24 inches
for a sawdog operation is distinct Ij^ poor business from the land-
ov/ner * s standpoint .

Crossett Farm Forestry Forty Shows Timber-CTrovdng Possibilities

The Crossett farm forestry study should interest all timberland
ovmers because it indicates the grovrth, yield, and returns that can
be expected from a large share of our forest land in the South once
the stocking is built up to a reasonable level. In 1937 forty acres
of second-growth shortleaf-loblolly pine were selected for management
as a farm vroodlot. It was planned to make an annual harvest of for-
est products from the area to see if timber could not be as much an
annual farm crop as corn, cotton, or potatoes.

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The volume of grovd.ng stock and the total amount of g^o\^^th
produced during the first year of management v^ere first determined
by a 100-percent inventory and a groi'jth study. Next, a number of
the larger and less valuable trees, having a volume equivalent to
the grovjth during the year, were marked for cutting. These marked
trees were then cut into the products for viiich they vrere best
suited. Parts of some trees made logs, other parts yielded p^jdp-
vrood and posts, and the lov^-grade, rough hardwood tops were made
into firevraod.

Ten such annual cuts have been made from the Z+O-acre tract
to date. Yet, today the volume of the stand is almost identical to
that present when the study was started in 1937. Moreover, since
most of the low-quality trees vrere removed in the first years of the
study, the quality of the stand is much better than when the study
started. These 10 annual cuts have produced 122,197 board feet
(Doyle rule) of logs, 281 cords of pulpwood, 171 cords of fuelwood,
and 313 fence posts. These products had a value of §1,741 in the
standing tree and a market value of §5,995. These figures repre-
sent a stumpage return of $43.53 per acre and a market value of
$149.^7 per acre for the 10-year period.

The results of this study indicate that timber properly?- man-
aged wdll yield large returns and is or can be as much an annual
crop as corn or cotton. Furthermore, since approximately 1,000
pounds of cellulose can be obtained from 1 standard cord of vrood,
the 40-acre farm woodlot is producing yearly axjproximately 27,900
pounds of cellulose. This is equal to 700 pounds per acre. It
forcibly demonstrates that v/ell-stocked stands of trees can pro-
duce more cellulose than cotton does on much of the hill land.

Cotton often yields less than 300 pounds of cellulose per acre.

illthough this is called a farm x^^oodland study, the results
can apply equally v/ell to timberland in other classes of ovmership.
You. may not harvest a crop from each acre of your forest land each
year, but you could get about the same results if you made a har-
vest every 5 years.

In times past, it has been conmion practice to say that if a
given piece of land was not valuable for agriculture, or grazing,
or recreation, or something else, it could and should be called
’•forest'* land and trees grown on it. In other v/ords, the forest
was supposed to contain any old piece of land that no one else
wanted. I believe that the Farm Forestry Forty has proven that,
on a very large percentage of our uplands throughout the South,
timber does not need to take a back seat to any crop.

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SupjTiary

Sunurdng up, just remember that ^^-our expenses of management per
acre per year are generally the same regardless of the amount of v;ood
produced. The wood you mil get per acre per year depends upon the
amount of growing stock of desirable species you have and hovr you han-
dle it. At the present time, most of the stands are badly understocked.
They are too thick in some spots and fa,r too thin in others. They
contain wolf trees and slov/- growing trees and much low-grade hardv:ood
that is cutting down the grovrbh of good trees by nearly one-half. A
large amount of open and non-restocking forest land close to the mills
needs to be planted. At the same time, the mills are paying a freight
charge of $3 to $5 per cord on wood from 200 to 300 mdles av^ay. In
general, ovjners of tlmberland are not getting anyv/here near their
money* s worth from their stands. If you are not, and you intend to
be in business for some time to come, you had better take advantage
of your opportunities. You can’t afford not to.

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