Silviculture and Management of Southern Hardwoods

The bottomland hardwood forest area of the southern United States constitutes one of the major problems today in forest land management. For the most part, the forests that occupy these sites have been subjected to every conceivable form of mismanagement and land abuse. In addition, the demand for land for agronomic crops, especially soybeans, has resulted in the clearing of thousands of acres of hardwood land in the Lower Mississippi Delta region. These factors, plus the increased need for hardwood species to support the existing wood-using plants and a developing hardwood pulp and paper industry, have resulted in shortages of needed raw materials in the hardwood industry. The development of the southern hardwood forest to meet present and future needs will require the implementation of intensive silviculture and up-to-date management practices. It is hoped that the papers contained in this Nineteenth Annual Forestry Symposium will be beneficial to foresters and landowners as they seek to improve hardwood forestry in the South.