composition is no problem for the logger who inte- 

 grates his operation to cut a variety of species and 

 produce a variety of products. However, to the logger 

 who depends on a particular species for a particular 

 product, species composition is important. 



Paper birch is an example. Much of it grows scat- 

 tered through other forest types such as yellow birch- 

 sugar maple-beech or spruce-fir-hardwood. Another 

 example is white pine. Of the total volume of white 

 pine sawtimber, less than 2.3 billion board-feet was 

 found in sawtimber stands where white pine is a major 

 component. The other half billion board-feet was 

 scattered through spruce-fir and hardwood forest types. 



Total Versus Available Timber Volume 



Not all of the timber volume in New Hampshire is 

 actually available for use. In dealing with this timber, 

 one must consider the practical problem of harvesting 

 it. How much is operable? 



The problem of operability lies in the location and 

 character of the forest stands and logging conditions. 

 The logger faces the question whether he can log a 

 stand profitably. He has to consider species composi- 

 tion, volume of timber per acre, tree size, tree quality, 

 and markets. These are generally more important 

 than gross volunie alone. 



If sawtimber trees are scattered thinly through 

 stands of small growth, they may not be worth going 

 after for sawlogs unless the logger can integrate sawlog 

 harvesting with logging of cordwood products. Pulp- 

 wood loggers are not likely to be interested in cutting 

 the pulpwood volume in light poletimber and seedling- 

 and-sapling stands. 



No rigid line can be drawn between operable and 

 unoperable stands. However, in the survey 1,500 

 board-feet per acre was taken as minimum for saw- 

 timber stands. On this basis, the survey showed that 

 there are 8.1 billion board-feet of sawtimber in saw- 

 timber stands. The other 1.6 billion board-feet of 

 sawtimber is in lighter stands. 



Forest Resources of New Hampshire 



21 



