VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

It is the “Soil Survey of Your County, Your State,” a publication for each county by the National Cooperative Soil Survey, a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other Federal agencies, State agencies including the Agricultural Experiment Stations, and local agencies.

Major fieldwork for the survey of Kemper County, MS, (the latest one available to us) was completed in 1990.  Soil names and descriptions were approved in 1991.  The survey was made cooperatively by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Following a thorough description of each soil, a table of “Woodland Management and Productivity” lists the species of trees suited to each soil plus the 50-year site index for each.  To convert these to SI-25 (the age we usually use), multiply SI-50 by 0.75.  Next follows a color map of the county at scale 1 inch = 3 miles showing major soil types.

Finally follows the most valuable section of all for our purposes: aerial photos of the entire county at scale 3 inches = 1 mile showing the public land survey plus boundaries of all soils.  Owners of land in Kemper County can plot it on these photos and discover, while at their desks and without professional assistance, its approximate productivity as a timberland investment.

You follow this procedure to investigate a tract offered for sale.  If you seek a loblolly tract with the traits we listed in http://www.vardaman.com/greensheets/buy.htm, you will have a tough time finding it in Kemper County.  According to our work with its Soil Survey, less than 10% of its land has enough promise to merit on-the-ground investigation.

These aerial photos are also superb for making maps of your tract.  Very few landowners who ask us for assistance can provide enough information for us to locate it on the ground. They are at an equal disadvantage when they try to sell land or timber.  You can imagine how the situation gets worse when their heirs later try to locate it.  Therefore, even if you don’t care what it will earn as an investment, we strongly urge you to get your Soil Survey and put an accurate map of your tract in your file.

Although NRCS publishes all surveys, each county’s survey is available only at its office in the county seat.  It’s free if copies are still available.  Once you see how valuable it is, you’ll blow us a kiss.