If any person shall be guilty of cutting or rafting any cypress, pine, oak, persimmon, gum, hickory, pecan, walnut, mulberry, poplar, cottonwood, sassafras, or ash trees, or other merchantable timber upon any lands belonging to this state or held in trust by this state, such person shall be guilty of crime, and on conviction, if the value of the trees or timber so cut or rafted shall be twenty-five dollars or more, such person shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding five years; and if the value of the said trees or timber so cut or rafted shall be under twenty-five dollars, such person shall be imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding six months or fined in a sum not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or both.
Miss. Code § 97-7-65