A lot of the Southeast is covered in forest now. In Georgia alone, about 70 percent of the land is now forested. Producers used to be able to make a good living off of forestry during the housing booms of previous decades, but now they are barely getting by. The Wall Street Journal has a long and interesting article describing why lumber is not paying well now and how farmers are coping with having to pay taxes on land that is worth very little. You can read it here.

Natural longleaf pine forest in Alabama. Source: William Boyer, US Forest Service.