24 BULLETIN 481, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



was made in 1909. x In the States considered in this bulletin, about 

 40 per cent of the totar woodlot area, or 58,000,000 acres, were esti- 

 mated to contain merchantable timber suitable for lumber, veneer, 

 etc. ; about 45 per cent, or 65,200,000 acres, had cordwood ; and about 

 15 per cent, or 21,800,000 acres, were brush land of only potential 

 value. Assuming that the average stand of merchantable timber 

 is 3,000 board feet per acre, with 10 standard cords of wood in 

 addition, and that the average stand in the woodlots fit for cord- 

 wood only is 8 cords per acre, the total stand would be 174,000- 

 000,000 board feet of log timber and about 1,100,000,000 cords of 

 other wood. According to this estimate, the stand of log timber 

 alone equals 15.6 per cent, or nearly one-sixth of all standing timber 

 in the Eastern States. 2 



A large proportion of the woodlots have been culled of their best 

 timber, and many have been so badly depleted by overcutting, graz- 

 ing, and fire that there is very little material left in them of more 

 than firewood value. Ignoring the fact that many of the large com- 

 mercial forests have suffered in the same way, it is often argued that 

 woodlot timber is essentially inferior to that of the timber forests 

 and that it is suited for only a few kinds of rough products — rough 

 lumber for farm buildings, cordwood for fuel, posts for the farm 

 fences, a few ties and .poles for sale to railroad, telegraph, and tele- 

 phone companies, etc. This argument may be justified, so far as 

 lumber is concerned, by the fact that farm lumber when cut and 

 sold by the owner or a local sawyer is apt to be poorly manufactured, 

 poorly graded, and poorly seasoned ; but it is not true that the pro- 

 ducing value of woodlots is restricted to the rough products above 

 mentioned. A very large part of the high-grade hickory, ash, and 

 white oak, now becoming scarce because of their extensive use in the 

 vehicle, handle, cooperage, and other industries, comes from wood- 

 lots. Many woodlots contain timber every bit as good as that in 

 the larger tracts and fully as capable of yielding high-grade lumber 

 if properly sawed and seasoned. Throughout the Eastern States 

 woodlots contain large quantities of pulp wood suitable for paper 

 making, low-grade lumber for boxes, bolts for slack and tight barrel 

 cooperage, and excellent log and bolt material of many species for 

 veneer. There is hardly a use to which wood is put that can not be 

 contributed to, liberally, from the woodlot supply. That fuel is a 

 proportionately large part of the woodlot output does not imply that 

 woodlots run more largely to low-grade material than the larger 



1 " Standing Timber in Woodlots," by Wesley Bradfield, in Report of the National 

 Conservation Commission, 1909, Vol. II, pp. 181-187. 



2 The total stand in the States covered by this bulletin is estimated as 1,117,700,000,000 

 board feet by H. S. Betts and W. B. Greeley (" Structural Timber in the United States," 

 Sept., 1915). This estimate is based largely on reports of the Bureau of Corporations 

 and of the National Conservation Commission. 



