Buncombe County Farmer Recommends Timber Plan, 1949

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, as published in the Wilmington Star on Aug. 4, 1949

Knowledge pays in farming. Perhaps in no other business does a man have to know so much about so many things to make a good living. An interesting example of this is seen in the case of Harry Morgan of Leicester, Route 2, Buncombe County. Mr. Morgan owns a tract of farm woodland, 33 acres in size, and containing about 145,000 board feet of trees ready for the saw. He was offered six dollars a thousand at the stump for the entire boundary as it stood. But he decided to look into the matter a little more and with the help of his farm agent, Riley Palmer, he secured the assistance of the Extension Farm Forester located in that section. The forester aided the owner to cruise his timber and to select and mark those trees which were suitable for sawing, leaving the immature trees to develop for later sale.

The sum of the whole matter is that Mr. Morgan marketed 78,000 board feet for immediate harvest, and he contracted to have these trees cut for $10 a thousand. He sold the cut logs for $30 a thousand feet at stumpage prices.

In other words, the farmer cleared his 33-acre boundary of the mature trees for which he received about 50 percent more than he would have received for all the trees had he agreed to the first price offered. Then, too his woodland would have been stripped of practically all of its growing stock. He figures it would have been 50 to 70 years before someone could have cut another crop of timber from that 33 acres. As it stands now, he plans personally to get another 75,000 board feet within 15 years at the latest.

The selective cutting that he followed in selling the first 78,000 feet the other day left him at least 2,000 feet of nice sound young trees as a start of his next harvest in 15 years.

Mr. Morgan wishes that every farmer in North Carolina with timber on his place would follow this plan. He believes it to be especially important to western North Carolina because that section has been developed mainly through its timber resources. Timber and forest products have always been among the leading commodities from the farms of that section, and, if this state is to keep up a sustained flow of forest products from stump to the consumer, every farmer must use his woodlands wisely. Mr. Morgan says it pays to do so. The eastern Carolina farmer will also find this to be true, he believes.