A-61291 



FuaiRE 31. — Kentucky has 

 about 25 large, permanent 

 sawmills that provide de- 

 pendable, yearlong employ- " 

 ment. 



Sawlogs worth nearly 14 million dollars were de- 

 livered to Kentucky's sawmills in 1948. This 

 amounted to 19 cents per cubic foot. The rough, 

 green lumber cut from these logs was worth ap- 

 proximately $50 per thousand board feet at the mill. 

 If such material were dried, graded, and sold on 

 the national market, the high-quality lumber woidd 

 bring more than twice that amount. However, more 

 than 8 percent went into railroad crossties and some 

 went into mine timbers, with a value close to that 

 of other rough, green lumber. Most mills produce 

 little high-quality lumber. Moreover they have no 

 organized outlets for quality material. Concentra- 

 tion yards are needed to accumulate and process 

 these products in commercial quantities. 



In 1948 about 727,000 man-days of labor were 

 required to cut and deliver sawlogs to Kentucky's 

 mills and 934,000 man-days to saw the logs into 

 liunber. This is the equivalent of full-time employ- 

 ment for about 6,600 men. However, many more 

 than this actually worked in the lumber industry, 

 because most of the mills operate only part time. 



Although precise information on the quality of 

 lumber produced is not available, a study of the 

 quality of sawlogs reaching the mills indicates that 

 the mill operators must find ways to dispose of a lot 

 of low-grade lumber. More than half the sawlog 

 volume going to Kentucky mills is in grade 3 logs. 

 Foi most species cut in Kentucky, the lumber yield 



from grade 3 logs will not average more than 20 

 percent No. 1 Common or better. 



Fuelwood 



About I1/2 niillion cords of wood were used in 

 Kentucky in 1948 for heating, cooking, burning 

 tobacco seedbeds, and curing tobacco. Less than 50 

 percent of the fuelwood came from growing stock. 

 About 20 percent of the wood was cut from dead 

 timber, and the remaining 30 percent was cull 

 trees, limbs, small saplings, logging slash, and slabs 

 and edgings from sawmills and stave mills. 



The value of fuelwood is low, but this use pro- 

 vides an outlet for much low-quality wood that 

 might not be used otherwise. The stands now con- 

 tain 2 to 4 billion cubic feet of low-quality wood. 

 The use of wood for fuel is declining, and the vol- 

 ume of low-quality wood in the stands is increas- 

 ing. Unless other ways are foimd to economically 

 use low-quality wood, it is unlikely that many wood- 

 land owners will be able to follow good forest cut- 

 ting practices, and this low-c[uality volume will 

 continue to increase. 



The total production of fuelwood in Kentucky 

 in 1948 was worth about 15 million dollars (assum- 

 ing a value of $10 per cord). Partly because of the 

 large volume produced and the inefficient methods 

 of cutting, fuelwood requires more labor than all 



Kentucky' s Forest Resources and Industries 



25 



