The marketing of forest products in Tennessee

Tennessee has the timber-producing potential, the markets, and the leadership necessary to develop a more productive timber economy, but at present the volume of saw timber is being harvested at a much greater rate than it is growing. This could be a devastating blow to our timber industry if better management practices are not applied in the future. In all regions of the state, current growth falls far below the full potentiality of the forest lands. Therefore, management practices should be directed towards growing more and better timber faster than it is being grown at the present time.

With timber being a $190 million yearly industry in the state, it would appear that more effort should be put forth in protecting and developing this important resource. Farmers should stop treating it as an unwanted stepchild. Vast quantities of timber that would now be worth a fortune have been destroyed in readying forest land for agricultural production. Many of these areas have been submarginal and in a few years they have reverted to waste land and eventually back to unmanaged forests, which are by far inferior to the original stands of timber. For this reason, large areas in all parts of the state which are at present classified as forest land are basically waste land, producing scrub trees that will never make salable timber.