Abstract
In the 20th century, southern forests changed dramatically. Those changes pale, however, when compared to what happened to the people of the region. In addition to growing over fourfold in numbers, the South's population has urbanized, globalized, and intellectualized in 100 years. Rural and isolated in the 19th century, they are today urban and cosmopolitan. One result has been a complete change in the approach to forestry. No longer an industrial process harvesting what nature has grown, it is now a scientifically based management process that produces a wide variety of goods and services. Thus what is happening in today's southern forest is unlike anything that would have been imagined 100 years ago. A large part of that is due to the advances in forest science and its wholesale adoption by industrial corporations, nonindustrial forest owners, and public agencies.
Parent Publication
Citation
Sampson, R. Neil. 2004. Southern forests: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In: Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS–75. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. Chapter 2. p. 5-14