EFFECT OF CHANGED CONDITIONS UPON FORESTRY ^ 



By W. W. Ashe 



A realization and a forecast for the Appalachians : A realization in 

 the increase in the value of low-grade timber, which within the past 

 decade has revolutionized utilization; a forecast that the motor truck 

 in its turn will within the next decade revolutionize the method of 

 operation. 



Recitals of price are meaningless without knowledge of conditions. 

 The axis of the Southern Appalachians, extending from Pennsylvania 

 to northern Alabama, is the great valley dividing this region into two 

 provinces. The eastern sector, embracing the Blue Ridge, has forests 

 in which chestnut prevailingly predominates, this species sometimes 

 forming over large areas more than two-thirds of the , cubic volume of 

 the stand, while chestnut oak comes next in volume. The western 

 sector, embracing the Cumberland and Alleghany plateaus and Sand 

 ]\Iountain, has forests in which chestnut is less conspicuous, forming 

 probably not to exceed one- fourth of the volume, but in which there are 

 stands of fine white oak and considerably more chestnut oak than to the 

 east. Chestnut and chestnut oak, both yielding largely low-grade lum- 

 ber, form the matrix of the most widely disseminated forest types in 

 both sectors, and there is in addition considerable Spanish oak and 

 black oak, beech, birch, maple, and hemlock, all likewise low grade. 

 Poplar, long the index of forest values in this region, forms less than 

 5 per cent of the volume, and red oak, which nearly equals poplar in 

 quality and price, forms a smaller portion of the stand. Old stands of 

 chestnut produce lumber of which not to exceed 15 per cent is No. i 

 common or better, 80 per cent normally being sound wormy grade ; but 

 a considerable proportion of such trees are too defective to be utilized 

 for saw timber and are converted entirely into tannic acid stock. Chest- 

 nut oak yields very little lumber above No. 2 common grade. These 

 and other low and medium grade species form more than 90 per cent 

 of the cubic volume of the stands. 



In 1910, under the then existing freight rates, the larger portion of 

 the lumber of these trees was not profitably marketable in the general 

 consuming centers. Selecting typical upper and lower grades and com- 



' Prepared for Society of American Foresters, March 20, 1919. 



657 



