More than 18 million acres of Mississippi are covered with forestland. About half of this acreage is either pine or a pine/hardwood mix. Located within these pine and pine/hardwood forests are many houses, subdivisions, and communities. As more people move to and build within these forests, the chance of loss or damage from wildfire increases. While large wildfires are uncommon in Mississippi, the conditions for such fires do occur. Many homeowners living in these areas are unaware and unprepared for a wildfire.

Interest is growing in the South, and throughout the United States, for landowners to provide recreational access to their land for people to hunt, fish, and enjoy other types of outdoor recreation. For many farm, ranch, forest, and other landowners, alternative enterprises may provide an opportunity to sustain their natural resource base, maintain their quality of life, and increase annual profits.

Many private landowners are interested in starting a natural resource-based enterprise on their land. This interest is a response to the general public’s increased desire for natural resource-based products from private lands and/or access and use of private lands for recreation.

The muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia Michx) is native to the southeastern United States, occurring from Georgia to Texas and northward along the Atlantic Coast to Delaware. Muscadines are well adapted to the warm, humid conditions of the Southeast where European and American grapes do not thrive.

Abundant bobwhite populations were once an accidental byproduct of land management practices as early settlers carved out small family farms in large expanses of southeastern forestland. Just as human activity once accidentally created good habitat for bobwhites, changes in the ways we use land have diminished bobwhite habitat quality. In Mississippi and other southeastern states, bobwhite and other wildlife species that depend on early successional plant communities have declined over the last several decades to historically low population levels (see Figure 1).

The concepts of cords and “thousand board feet” (MBF), Doyle log scale, are comfortable units of timber measurement in Mississippi. However, times change and so do the ways of business and industry. It has become common for forest industry companies and log buyers to purchase timber on the basis of weight, usually in tons. This development has become a source of confusion for many landowners, especially when the time comes to market their timber.

“Fitness” means having a body that is ready for the physical demands of daily life. A fit body requires different types of physical activities. These are major fitness goals:

• flexibility
• strength
• endurance

Download the PDF above to read more.