18 BULLETIN 753, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
the winters are longer, and snow, especially in northern New Eng- 
land, makes it practically impossible to get out much wood in the 
depth of winter. 
A yard established~in 1917 at Durham, N. C., purchased 1,260 
cords of wood at an average cost at the yard of $5 a cord. Wood 
was delivered at an average cost to the consumer of $7. It came 
from two sources—a sawmill about 14 miles distant from which slabs 
were shipped by rail, and a farmer’s woodland from which cordwood 
in, 8-foot lengths was secured. The slabs were mostly green pine 
of odd lengths, for which $2 per cord was charged f. o. b. cars. 
Freight charges amounted to about 75 cents per cord. The coal and — 
wood yard is adjacent to the railroad tracks, and the wood was un- 
loaded from the cars exactly where needed by the sawyers. The 
wood from the farmers’ woodlands near by was green pine and oak, 
cut in 8-foot lengths and split in halves or quarters. The price was 
$3.50 per cord piled in the woods. It was hauled from the woods to 
the roadside by six county teams and there piled in a long rick, from 
which it was loaded upon motor trucks. Three trucks were used, 
each making four trips a day and carrying about 1 cord per ton of 
rated capacity, so that the total daily delivery was about 40 cords. 
The cost of hauling was about $1 per cord; it would have been less 
if there had been better loading and unloading facilities. The dis- 
tance was 24 to3 miles. (See fig. 2.) 
Cordwood was sold according to the cubic contents of the wagon 
boxes, most of the wood being sold at the yard. The estimated cost of 
sawing to stove length was 50 cents per cord on the yard. 
MEASURING WOOD FUEL. 
CORDS. 
A standard cord of firewood is a pile 8 by 4 by 4 feet, which con- 
tains 128 cubic feet of stacked wood. It is customary to pile green 
wood 2 or 8 inches higher than 4 feet to allow for shrinkage and set- 
tling as it dries. In measuring piles of wood the average dimensions 
are taken. 
A “running” cord or “ face” cord, 8 feet long by 4 feet high and 
12, 16, or 24 inches wide, according to the length to which it is cut 
for use, is frequently called a cord in the market. 
Though a cord contains 128 cubic feet the space occupied includes 
air as well as wood. The actual solid contents of a cord is only about 
70 per cent of this amount, or 90 cubic feet for wood of average size. 
For small sticks, where the average diameter is 4 inches or less, there 
are less than 80 cubic feet per cord; in the case of larger sticks 10 
inches or over in diameter there may be as much as 100 cubic feet per 
