Timber — Harrison County's Number One Crop

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Harrison County Forestry Facts

Source: Forest Statistics for Mississippi Counties - 1994
USDA - Forest Service

Forest Economics

Dollars and Sense For Harrison County

Increase Forestry Income for Yourself and for Harrison County!

• Get involved in a County Forestry Association to learn more about forestry.
• Use the advice and services of a professional forester.
• Have a forest-management plan prepared for your land. The plan should tell you what you have, what you need to do, and when you need to do it.
• Reforest all of your idle or cut-over forestlands.
• Manage your forests as you would any other agricultural crop.
• Use good marketing techniques when you sell timber.
• Become familiar with timber tax laws.
• Be an active manager of your forestland.

Benefits from Managing Your Forestland

• You will make more money.
• Your land value will increase as a managed timber stand grows.
• Trees grow tax-deferred as they increase in volume and value.
• Good forest management is also good wildlife management.
• Managed forests will provide a better local forest market, industry, and jobs.

Consequences of NOT Managing Your Forestland

• You will lose money.
• You must pay land taxes whether the acres are idle or productive.
• Unmanaged forestland usually results in understocked and often less desirable timber species.
• An unmanaged forest decreases potential land value.
• You will lose future harvest revenues.

For more information on how to manage your forestland, contact the following agencies:

County Extension Agent
Mississippi State University Extension Service
Drawer Z
Gulfport, MS 39502-0045
Phone: (228) 868-4227

County Forester
Mississippi Forestry Commission
12236 A Ashley Drive
Gulfport, MS 39503
Phone: (228) 831-3359

Prepared by Tim Traugott, Extension Forestry Specialist

Publication 2080
Extension Service of Mississippi State University, cooperating with U.S. Department of Agriculture. Published in furtherance of Acts of Congress, May 8 and June 30, 1914. Joe H. McGilberry, Interim Director

(rev-500-12-01)

Copyright by Mississippi State University. All rights reserved.

This document may be copied and distributed for nonprofit educational purposes provided that credit is given to the Mississippi State University Extension Service.