WEIGHT AS A MEASURE OF CORDWOOD 137 



feet per cord, used on the Pacific Coast, be obtained. The ratio in New England 

 for pulp wood is 560 board feet. 1 



115. Weight as a Measure of Cordwood. For fuel, weight is a 

 better measure of the value of cordwood than solid cubic volume, and 

 of still greater utility for the measurement of stacked volume. Its 

 merits increase with the increasing irregularity of form in sticks which 

 render the determination of solid contents of stacks so uncertain. But 

 one factor operates against the substitution of weight for stacked 

 measure, for fuel wood, and that is the unfamiliarity of the public with 

 the proper standard weights which should constitute a cord. This 

 is due first to the great variation in weight between wood of different 

 species, a variation which would be equalized as to price if equal weights 

 regardless of bulk commanded approximately the same price, and second, 

 to the great difference in weight between green and air-dried wood. 

 If sold by weight, dealers would endeavor to sell the wood as green as 

 possible. Green wood has less net fuel value per pound, not only 

 because the purchaser pays for water instead of net dry weight, but also 

 because each pound of dry wood has to generate heat enough to vaporize 

 all the water in the wood and only the surplus heat is given off. 



But for dead dry juniper or pinon or mesquite roots or for well- 

 seasoned woods difficult to measure in bulk, weight is practically the 

 universal standard. Dealers customarily deliver from 200 to 400 

 pounds less of weight per cord than the actual weight of an average 

 cord of such wood. For instance, pinon should weigh 3000 pounds 

 per cord, but it is often sold at 2000 pounds per cord. It would be 

 better to substitute weight altogether and not maintain the pretense 

 of delivering a cord by measure. This would place the dry wood 

 on the same basis as coal. 



Air-dried wood still contains from 15 to 20 per cent moisture. The 

 variation in per cent of water in green wood compared with dry wood 

 is extreme, as illustrated by Table LXXXIII (Appendix C). 



References 



Factors Influencing the Volume of Solid Wood in the Cord, Raphael Zon, Forestry 



Quarterly, Vol. I, 1903, p. 126. 

 Untersuchungen iiber die Festgehalt und das Gewicht des Schichtholzes und der 



Rinde, F. Baur, Augsburg, 1879. 

 Mitteilungen aus dem Forstlichen Versuchswesen Oesterreiches, 1877-1881, Report 



by Von Seckendorff. 

 Paper Birch in the Northeast, S. T. Dana, U. S. Forest Service Circular 163, 1909, 



pp. 34-35. 



1 In Forest Mensuration of White Pine in Massachusetts, p. 45, ratios for white 

 pine 1-inch lumber are given, running from 488 board feet for 5-inch logs to 730 

 board feet for 24-inch logs, measured at middle of log outside bark. 



