HARDWOOD RECORD 



group was seven, which were contained in an 

 area of a quarter of an acre. Tlie poplar or- 

 dinarily stands alone in a forest and seems a 

 veritable monarch among the surrounding 

 trees. The finest specimens of poplar are 

 found in the deep coves of the mountain 

 regions of Vii-ginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, 

 Tennessee and North Carolina. The be,st 

 growth is found in heavy and rich soil. 



The heaviest and richest gi-owth of poplar 

 in the United States undoubtedly is that of 

 the Big Sandy river region of Kentucky, West 

 Virginia and Virginia. The yellow poplar of 

 this section has become famous in the annals 

 (if poplar production as of the very highest 

 type in texture, in color, and in all the quali- 

 ties that make up a high-class lumber product. 



The Big Sandy river, for a .^treteh of one 

 Innuh'ed and fifty miles, is the dividing line 

 between eastern Kentucky and western West 

 A'irginia. The river has a multitude of 

 branches in A^irginia, in Wise, Dickenson and 

 Buchanon counties, three of the four extreme 

 ;vesteru counties of the state that border on 

 Kentucky. 



Big Sandy poplar has made the woo<l fa- 

 mous, but the region tributary to the river 

 for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles 

 above its mouth has been exploited ever since 

 poplar manufacture commenced, and is now 

 practically exhausted of this timber. The 

 same, or even a higher type of the wood, 

 exists on the tributaries of the upper reaches 

 of the stream, and in Dickinson county, Va., 

 is found the very highest type of poplar 

 growth that ever existed. In quantity of 

 stand per acre the Big Sandy region is far 

 in excess of ordinary poplar areas. It often 

 shows an average of twenty-five hundred feet 

 per acre, and is usually intermingled with a 

 high type of white oak. In fact, the stand of 

 white oak per acre is considerably in excess 

 of that of poplar. There is also intermingled 

 other woods, red oak, chestnut and beech, but 

 from a commercial viewpoint the growth is 

 essentially poplar and wliite oak. The .same 

 observations in regard to Big Sandy poplar 

 being the highest type that exists is equally 

 true of white oak growth of this section. Both 

 of these woods to reach their highest develo])- 

 ment require good soil, and such obtains along 

 the entire watershed of the Big Sandy river 

 and its tributaries. 



It is in Dickinson country, Va., that the 

 present and final yellow poplar timber hold 

 iugs of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company 

 are located. In this county the company has 

 yet remaining after this year 's cut more than 

 one hundred million feet of- virgin growth. 

 The present season 's output will apjiroximate 

 forty million feet. This timber has already 

 been felled and transported to the gorge of 

 Russell Fork, one of the main branches of the 

 Big Sandy river, and is now being splashed 

 out to the lower river, where it is being rafted 

 and floated down the Big Sandy to Catletts- 

 burg, and thence will be transferred across 

 the Ohio river to the Yellow Poplar Lumber 

 Company 's log harbor at its big sawmills at 

 Coal Grove, O. 



XOT EXCEPTIU.NAI. 



MBEIt. 



