MEASUREMENT Ol' I'^UEL WOOD 



By H. O. Cook 

 Assistant I'orcstcr, MassacJutsctts I'orcstry ncpartuicnt 



Foresters and wood dealers are familiar with the failings of the 

 stacked cord as a unit of measure for fuel wood. It is a valueless unit 

 for a majority of the ultimate consumers in Massachusetts, because 

 they purchase their wood not in 4-foot lengths, but in shorter lengths, 

 htted for the stove or fireplace. While in many places wood was for 

 the consumer a luxury, to be used in small quantities, occasionally he 

 was able to get along without a satisfactory method of measurement ; 

 but with the coal shortage wood suddenly became a vital necessity, not 

 only to householders, but to hotels, office buildings, and factories, and 

 the consumer has become vitally interested in a method of measure- 

 ment under which he can tell how much wood he is purchasing. There 

 is a growing number of woodlot operators who no longer cut their wood 

 into 4-foot sticks and pile it, but cut the trees into miscellaneous long 

 lengths, sometimes called shed lengths, and haul direct to a cordwood 

 saw, where it is cut into stove and fireplace lengths. In such operations 

 the stacked cord has no value as a unit of measure. The Massachusetts 

 State Forester has carried on a series of experiments to determine the 

 average number of cubic feet in a cord of wood cut into 2-foot (one 

 cut), 16-inch (two cuts), and 12-inch (three cuts) lengths and thrown 

 into a bin or wagon body. 



The experiments were carried on at two places — one in Dover and 

 the other at Marion. The trees in these operations were utilized full 

 length, but for the purpose of the experiment a few cords were cut into 

 regulation form foot-lengths and stacked into half-cord piles. These 

 ])iles were then taken to the saw and cut into 2- foot, 16-inch, and i-foot 

 lengths, and put into a bin the dimensions of which were 5 by 5 by 4 feet. 

 Care was taken to level the top of the pile in the bin, its height meas- 

 ured, and the cubic contents of the half cord thus computed. We soon 

 found that the 2-foot wood piled so irregularly that it would not be 

 ])OSsible to establish a standard relation for it, and the experiment was 

 confined to 16-inch and 12-inch wood. Three classes of wood were dis- 

 tinguished — all cleft, all round, and mixed round and cleft. Naturally, 

 in creating a standard, the average cubic contents of the mixed round 

 and cleft wood should be the one chosen. When cordwood is cut into 

 short lengths and thrown into a box, one expects its cubic contents to 



920 



