VOLUME- PER -AC RE CLASS 



(BOARD feet) 



AREA 



VOLUME 



Less Thon 200 



200-999 



lpOO-1,999 



2,000-2^99 



3,000 -3;999 



4,000-4,999 



5,000-9,999 



10,000-24,999 



30 20 10 10 



PERCENT 



20 



30 



Figure 22.— Proportion of commercial forest area and board-foot volume by volume-per-acre class. 



will \ ield only about 20 percent of their volume in 

 No. 1 Common or better lumber. 3 



Only 15 percent of Kentucky's sawtimber is in 

 high-quality logs. This amotmts to 31/9 billion board 

 feet. Of this nearly 2.2 billion board feet occur in 

 the Eastern Highlands region (fig. 23). Much of 

 this voliune is residual timber left after logging dur- 

 ing earlier days. Pioneer loggers passed it up be- 

 cause it was inaccessible at that time or was of an 

 iinw-anted species. A little more than 1 billion board 

 feet of high-quality timber is left in the Western 

 Plateau region and only 100 million in the Bltie- 

 grass region. 



Red and white oaks make up about half of the 

 high-quality sawtimber. A large part of the remain- 

 ing volume of quality timber is in yellow-poplar, 

 sweetgiuTi, blackgtmi, soft maple, beech, and cotton- 

 wood. 



Forty-three percent of the volume in low-quality 

 logs is in trees in the 12- and 14-inch diameter 

 classes. Future growth will improve the quality of 

 many of these. Nearly 40 percent of the low-quality 

 hardwood volume is in trees 18 inches and larger. 

 Many of the trees containing this volume will never 

 improve in quality and if allowed to remain in the 



REGION 



HARDWOOD VOLUME IN GRADE 132 LOGS 



EASTERN HI3MLASDS 

 WESTERN PuiTEfiU 

 BLUEGRiSS 



BILLION BOARD FEET 



3 For a more precise definition of log grades, see appen- 

 dix, p. 39. 



Figure 2o.— Distribution of high-quality hard-wood sawtimber 

 volume by region. 



Stand will retard the growth of small trees of poten- 

 tially high quality. The remaining low-quality vol- 

 tune is in trees of the 16-inch diameter class. These 

 trees are just beginning to put on quality growth 

 and many of them will quickly improve in quality. 

 Kentucky's forests average only about 20 sawtim- 

 ber-size trees per acre. Of these, about 4 are culls. 

 Culls are not included in the above-mentioned low- 

 quality volumes. Although these cull trees are not 

 considered merchantable, they do contain nearlv 

 2 billion cubic feet of sound wood. 



I'ohime of Groiving Stock 



The volume of growing stock (sawtimbei and 

 poletimber combined) is about 614 billion cubic 

 feet, an average of less than 600 cubic feet per acre. 

 This low average volume per acre indicates that 



18 



Forest Resource Report No. 7 , U. S. Department of Agriculture 



