43 United States

P’ Department of

Argriculture

Southern Forest

Forest Service Research Note

Experiment Station

SO-308

September, 1984

Socio-Economic Characteristics of

Prospective Nonindustrial Private Timber Sellers

in East Texas

Clifford A. Hickman

SUMMARY METHODS

Data provided by 317 nonindustrial private forest

owners suggest that in the East Texas region, future timber sellers will tend to exhibit the following characteristics:

(1) their forest holdings will be 100 or more acres in size;

(2) they will have owned forest land for 10 or more years;

(3) they will live in towns or cities, not on their forest properties; (4) they will be primarily interested in the incomeproducing potential as opposed to consumptive use of

their woodlands; (5) they will be farmers and ranchers or

business and professional people; (6) they will have

completed at least some college; and (7) their incomes

will exceed $30,000 per year.

Data Collection

Additional Keywords: small woodland owners, timber marketing.

Two counties-Rusk in northeast Texas and Walker in

southeast Texas-were selected for study. Each was

chosen as representative of its respective subregion.

Rusk County contains about 290,000 acres of commercial forest, some 90 percent of which is controlled by NIP

forest owners (Earles 1976). Walker County has approximately 325,000 acres of commercial woodland, of which

NIP forest owners hold roughly 75 percent (Earles 1976).

Timber markets in these counties have traditionally been

active. Before the economic recession of the early

1980’s, some 12 million cubic feet of industrial wood

products were harvested annually in each area (Braddock 1978).

INTRODUCTION

Not all merchantable timber held by nonindustrial private (NIP) forest owners is available to the market in the

short-run. Some is controlled by people who are reluctant

or unwilling to sell. This fact is of continuing concern to

firms who must rely on open market stumpage to satisfy

at least part of their wood requirements. This is particularly true in the South, where almost three-quarters of the

commercial forest land is in NIP ownership (USDA Forest

Service 1982).

Rural landowners in the two study counties were identified from ownership lists provided by the Agricultural

Stabilization and Conservation Service. For each individual, the lists indicated name and address, total number of

acres owned, and number of acres under cultivation.

Building on this information, stratified random sampling

with proportional allocation was used to select 1,000

potential respondents from each list. The following three

strata, based on differences in total property size, were

recognized: 500 or more acres, 100 to 499 acres, and 40

to 99 acres. Properties of less than 40 acres were not

considered.

The purpose of this note is to provide, for the case of

East Texas, up-to-date information as to the types of NIP

forest owners who will be most likely to sell timber in the

future. The results should be of interest to procurement

foresters as well as others concerned with the marketing

of timber from NIP ownerships.

To obtain the required data, questionnaires were sent

to the selected property owners in each county. The

questionnaires asked the recipients to indicate if a timber

sale was planned for the future. Three responses were

allowed-yes, no, and uncertain. Information was also

solicited about several socio-economic characteristics.

Southern Forest Experiment Stationn-102lO U.S. Postal Services Bldg., 701 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, La. 70113

Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Serving Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, E. Oklahoma, Tennessee, E. Texas, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands

1
The first and second columns of table 1 identify these

characteristics and explain how each was defined.

The number of questionnaires returned after two mailings totaled 850. Many of these, however, were rejected

for incompleteness or because the respondents indicated thev were uncertain as to their future sales olans.

The number of acceptable responses was 3171163

from Rusk County and 154 from Walker County. Though

greatly in terms of the observed socioeconomic characteristics, and, for both counties, were distributed among

the various sampling strata in approximately the same

proportions as the two landowner populations.

Data Analysis

low, these response rates were judged to be adequate. Contingency tables were employed to determine

Furthermore, there were no apparent reasons to suspect which socio-economic characteristics were related to willthat the returns were biased. The respondents differed ingness to sell. The number of rows in the tables varied

Table 1 .-The socio-economic characteristics considered in the study, the manner in which they were defined, and the nature of their relationship to

the prospective willingness of N/P forest owners in East Texas to se// timber

Socio-economic

characteristic

Manner defined Nature of relationship to

prospective willingness to sell timber

h=O.O51

Acres of forest land owned

Years of tenure

Distance of permanent residence to

forest property

Primary interest in forest land ownership

Sex

Occupation

Age

Size of community where raised

Size of community where presently

residing

Education

Responses were aggregated into two classes:

(1) < 100 acres, and (2) 2100 acres.

Responses were aggregated into two classes:

(1) < 10 years, and (2) ~10 years.

Responses were aggregated into two classes:

(1) owner lives on the property, and (2) owner

lives off the property.

Responses were aggregated into two classes:

(1) income oriented (e.g., timber production,

grazing, investment or speculation, and leasing),

and (2) consumption oriented (e.g., place of residence, personal recreation, and enjoyment of

wildlife).

The two possible responses were: (1) male, and

(2) female.

Responses were aggregated into four classes:

(1) farmers and ranchers, (2) business and

professional people, (3) retired persons, and (4)

others.

Responses were aggregated into three classes:

(1) ~50 years, (2) 50 to 64 years, and (3) 265

years.

Responses were aggregated into three classes:

(1) open country, (2) town (i.e.,

population c 15,000), and (3) city (i.e.,

population 2 15,000).

Responses were aggregated into three classes:

(1) open country, (2) town (i.e.,

population< 15,000), and (3) city (i.e.,

population 2 15,000).

Responses were aggregated into four classes:

(1) s8th grade, (2) 9th grade to 12th grade, (3)

attended or completed college, and (4) graduate

work.

Responses were aggregated into three classes:

(1) ~$15,000 per year, (2) $16,000 to $30,000

per year, and (3) > $30,000 per year.

Planned sales more prevalent among owners

with 2100 acres of.forest land.

Planned sales more prevalent among owners

with 210 years tenure.

Planned sales more prevalent among absentee

owners.

Planned sales more prevalent among owners

interested in the income producing potential of

forest land.

None-variables independent.

Planned sales more prevalent among farmers

and ranchers or business and professional people.

None-variables independent.

None-variables independent.

Planned sales more prevalent among owners living in towns or cities of 2 15,000 population.

Planned sales more prevalent among owners

who have attended college.

Planned sales more prevalent among oLvners

with incomes exceeding $30,000 per year.

Clifford A. Hickman is Principal Economist, USDA Forest Service, Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans, Louisiana. This study was conducted while the author was Assistant Professor, Department of Forest Science, Texas A&M University. Financial support for the research was

provided by the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.

2
from two to four, depending on which characteristic was

being considered, and there were two columns-“timber

sale planned” and “no timber sale planned.” All testing

was performed at the (r=O.O5 significance level. Whenever the decision was to reject the null hypothesis of independence, the table in question was evaluated-by

studying the observed and expected values of each cell

-to see if the nature of the relationship could be inferred.

Initially, the returns were examined by county. However, since the findings were very similar, all of the

responses were combined and analyzed jointly for purposes of this note.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of the testing are shown in the last column

of table 1. These data suggest that future timber sellers in

East Texas will tend to exhibit the following socio-economic characteristics:

l their forest holdings will be 100 or more acres in

size,

l they will have owned forest land for 10 or more

years,

l they will live in towns or cities, not on their forest

properties,

l they will be primarily interested in the income-producing potential as opposed to consumptive use of

their woodlands,

l they will be farmers and ranchers or business and

professional people,

l they will have completed at least some college and

l their incomes will exceed $30,000 per year.

To a considerable degree, the preceding findings are

consistent with those obtained in earlier studies. Almost

without exception, interest in timber harvesting is positively related to the amount of forest land owned (Babeu

et al. 1965, Binkley 1981, Holmes and Diamond 1980,

Kingsley 1976, Marlin.1 978). Similarly, most investigators

have concluded that forest owners are more likely to participate in local timber markets if they have held their

property for several years and choose to emphasize

income-producing uses over residential or recreational

pursuits (Canham 1971, Holmes and Diamond 1980). In

line with this latter premise, a number of inquiries have

shown that farmers and ranchers tend to make more timber sales than property owners with different occupations

(Binkley 1981, Holmes and Diamond 1980). Finally, as

was true in this analysis, other researchers have failed to

observe any strong relationship between willingness to

sell and a landowner’s sex or age (Canham 1971,

Holmes and Diamond 1980).

Contrary to the results obtained in this study, some

investigators have found that resident forest owners tend

to make more timber sales than absentee owners

(Holmes and Diamond 1980). Also, there is some evidence that people raised in rural settings are more

inclined to sell timber than persons coming from urban

backgrounds (Holmes and Diamond 1980, Kingsley

1976). Two final dissimilarities relate to the effects of education and income on a landowner’s willingness to harvest. Several researchers have,concluded that both variables are independent of the decision to sell (Canham

1971, Kingsley 1976, Holmes and Diamond 1980). In

one instance where a significant relationship was

observed, both attributes were determined to be

inversely, not positively, related to the likelihood of market

participation (Babeu et al. 1965).

For the most part, the discrepancies noted above are

probably attributable to the fact that the local stumpage

markets examined in this study, and thus the economic

incentives for growing and harvesting timber, differed

substantially from those evaluated in many other investigations. As market pressures vary, it seems reasonable

to expect that NIP forest owners-even those having similar socio-economic characteristics-will not always act

consistently in deciding whether or not they will sell timber. This highlights the need to exercise caution in

attempting to extend the results of this, or other comparable analyses, outside of the areas within which they were

conducted. Though certain interrelationships-e.g., the

link between acreage of forest land owned and willingness to sell-seem to have fairly universal applicability,

others may only be relevant to particular states or

regions. In this regard, the profile of prospective timber

sellers that emerges from this study seems generally

compatible with the results of other inquiries performed in

the South (Mullaney and Robinson 1980). These findings

suggest that future timber sellers in this region will tend to

be people who own sizable amounts of forest land and

who are primarily interested in the income-producing

potential of their properties. Some will be farmers and

ranchers by trade, but others will be business and professional people who reside in a town or city. Most will have

owned their forest tracts for several years. In addition,

these future market participants will normally have completed some college and will be earning well above average incomes.

LITERATURE CITED

Babeu, Ft. G.; Rhodes, A. D.; MacConnell, W. P.; Foster,

J. H. Forest owner characteristics and attitudes in

Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Amhurst, MA: Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station Bull. 549;

1965.55 p.

Binkley, C. S. Timber supply from private nonindustrial

forests: a micro-economic analysis of landowner

behavior. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Bull. 92; 1981.97 p.

Braddock, K. Harvest trends 1977. College Station, TX:

Texas Forest Service Publ. 118; 1978.23 p.

3
Canham, H. 0. Timber ownership and supply in New

York. Syracuse, NY: State Univ. of New York College

of Forestry; 1971.301 p. Dissertation.

Earles, J. M. Forest statistics for East Texas pineywoods

counties. Resour. Bull. SO-60. New Orleans, LA: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern

Forest Experiment Station; 1976.40 p.

Holmes, T.; Diamond, J. An analysis of nonindustrial private woodland owners’ attitudes towards timber harvesting and forest land use in Windham County, Connecticut. Storrs, CT: Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Res. Pap. 63; 1980.23 p.

Kingsley, N. P. The forest-land owners of Southern New

England. Resour. Bull. NE-41. Upper Darby, PA: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station; 1976.27 p.

Marlin, C. B. A study of small timber tracts’in Louisiana.

Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana Agricultural Experiment

Station Bull. 710; 1978.65 p.

Mullaney, G. E.; Robinson, V. L. Forest investment by

nonindustrial private landowners in Georgia. Macon,

GA: Georgia Forestry Commission Res. Pap. 12;

1980.6 p.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. An analysis of the timber situation in the United States

1952 - 2030. For. Resour. Pap. 23. Washington, D.C.:

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service; 1982.

499 p.

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