DISTRIBUTION. 7 



It is also extensively employed for veneers for baskets and crates and 

 for excelsior. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Yellow poplar is commercially important throughout Tennessee. It is 

 most abundant on the limestone valley lands of the great basin and in the 

 valley of East Tennessee; in the coves and hollows of the Cumberland 

 Mountains ; and in the lower coves of the Unaka and Smoky mountain 

 ranges ; but it nevertheless reaches a large size in such counties of West 

 Tennessee as Obion, Dyer, and others which lie west of the barrens. 

 Above 3,500 feet elevation in the Unaka and Smoky mountains it occurs 

 only irregularly. It is very largely absent from the thin soiled summit 

 of the Cumberland Mountains, from the drier portions of the shale and 

 sandstone ridges and from the barrens. Even when most abundant it 

 seldom forms numerically as much as 10 per cent, of the forest over more 

 than a few acres, but on account of the large size of the trees it frequently 

 contributes from 20 to 25 per cent, of the merchantable timber in the bot- 

 toms and on the lower slopes, and may form 50 per cent, of the value of 

 stand. The yield of poplar lumber seldom amounts to as much as 500 

 board feet per acre over a large tract, and frequently is less than 200 feet 

 per acre. 



The following table shows the number of trees of different diameters 

 per acre in Tennessee on a large tract which has been examined by the 

 Forest Service. If this tract represents average conditions of the hard- 

 wood forest of Middle and Eastern Tennessee, there is sufficient young 

 poplar in the stands to assure a large future cut of timber, provided the 

 young trees are not cut before they reach the size of maturity for saw 

 timber. 



Number of trees of yellow poplar per acre on an unlumbcred tract. 



Diameter Scott and 



Inches Anderson counties 



Breast-high (Cumberland Mt.) 



Under 12 4. 



13-20 1.3 



21-30 1.3 



Over 30 .1 



On cut-over and closely culled land which has not been badly burned, 

 there is as a rule a large number of small poplar trees in the coves and 

 hollows. These trees have sprung up in the openings which were made 

 in logging. Occasionally they form a continuous stand in the narrow 

 mountain valleys or form groups, pure or nearly pure, from a square rod 

 to several rods in extent. There is often a far larger proportion of pop- 



