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America's huge pulp and paper industry expanded into the South in the 1930's and 1940's, taking advantage of the forests that covered nearly half of the region from Florida to eastern Texas. The value of forest products came to exceed all other agriculture products. This industry's success and growth depended largely upon the social structure of the South. In Alabama, each pulp and paper mill employed between five and twenty dealers who contracted with between five and fifty producers who, equipped with a saw and a truck, harvested and delivered the wood. During the 1940's and 1950's there were large numbers of agriculture workers willing to cut pulpwood. Those cutting the wood worked directly with the dealers who bought as much pulp as the mill needed at the time. As the demand soared and high-volume producers met it, small producers were being squeezed out of the market by the early 1990's.