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Southern Counties Lead Timber Lists
STARKVILLE -- Final figures for Mississippi's 1995 timber harvest show southern counties continue to lead the state in production levels.
Dr. Bob Daniels, extension forestry specialist at Mississippi State University, compiled the harvest data based on severance tax reports from the Mississippi State Tax Commission.
"South Mississippi markets are stronger and more competitive. Southern counties are where the majority of harvesting began when the state was settled," Daniels said. "It has been just within the last 10 years that competition has increased in North Mississippi."
Daniels said Mississippi's 1995 timber harvest was valued at about $1.105 billion, up 2.5 percent from 1994.
The state's major timber products are sawlogs, pulpwood and pine poles. Sawlogs generally are cut into lumber or used to manufacture plywood. Pulpwood is used to make chips for pulp and paper manufacturing. Poles are high-valued pine stems used for transmission and utility poles or piles used in heavy construction.
Clarke County was the leading pulpwood producer with 336,060 cords. Kemper County was a close second with 317,903 cords.
Clarke and Kemper counties swapped first and second places in pulpwood production, with Kemper first in pine and Clarke first in hardwood.
Other top pine pulpwood producing counties were Wayne, Lincoln and Copiah. Other hardwood pulpwood producing counties were Holmes, Wilkinson and Copiah. Holmes County, located almost in the center of the state, was the northern-most county to make the top five of any production categories.
Daniels said harvested pine pulpwood volumes were up about 8 percent and hardwood volumes were up about 13 percent in 1995.
"Pulpwood accounts for more than one-third of the total value of harvested forest products," Daniels said.
Amite County led the state in sawlog production. The top pine sawlog producing counties were Amite, Franklin and Neshoba.
The top hardwood sawlog producing counties were Warren, Claiborne and Adams.
The top pole producing counties were Lamar, Forrest, Pearl River, Greene and Amite. Lamar County produced 823,300 cubic feet of poles in 1995.
Daniels said preliminary figures for 1996 indicate prices are slightly behind the previous year and volume is about the same or slightly greater.
