Summary 



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Importance of the Forest.— There are approxi- 

 mately 111/4 rnillion acres of commercial forest land 

 in Kentucky. This is 45 percent of the total land 

 area. The forests support a total volume of 61/2 

 billion cubic feet of growing stock, which includes 

 nearly 25 billion board feet of sawtimber. More 

 than 90 percent of the growing stock is in hardwood 

 species. In 1948 the value of all primary forest prod- 

 ucts produced (all round products) was 42 million 

 dollars. About 3% million man-days of labor were 

 required to cut these primary wood products and 

 deliver them to the mills or users. 



Ownership of the Forest.— Ninety-iour percent of 

 Kentucky's forest area is privately owned— about 

 half by farmers. The Federal Government owns 

 671,000 acres, mostly in the Cumberland National 

 Forest. The State owns 56,000 acres. All of the forest 

 land is capable of producing commercial timber, 

 but 51,000 acres, mostly in the Mammoth Cave 

 National Park, are reserved from timber cutting. 



Most of the forest area owned by farmers is in 

 small tracts, averaging about 30 acres per farm. 

 Some coal and lumber companies own tracts of 

 timber ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 acres and 

 larger in size. Most of these larger ownerships are 

 in the eastern part of the State. 



Condition of the Forest.— In general the forest is 

 understocked, of poor quality, and averages only 

 2,154 board feet per acre. Of the forest area 43 per- 

 cent bears sawtimber stands. Stands of large saw- 

 timber average 5,300 board feet per acre, and small 

 sawtimber stands a^'erage 3,000 board feet per acre. 

 Pole stands, found on 36 percent of the forest area, 

 average 432 cubic feet per acre, including 726 board 

 feet per acre in scattered sawtimber trees. Seedling 

 and sapling, and nonstocked stands occur on one- 

 fifth of the forest area. 



In general the stands have an abnormally high 

 proportion of small trees. The average acre has 364 

 sound trees: 80 percent are in the 2- and 4-inch diam- 

 eter classes. 16 percent are pole size, and 4 percent 



are sawtimber size. In addition, the average acre hai^ 

 3 or 4 sawtimber-size cull trees. 



Nearly 85 percent of the 23 billion board feet of 

 hardwood sawtimber volume is in grade 3 logs— logs 

 that on the average yield about 20 percent of their 

 \olume in No. 1 Common or better lumber. How- 

 ever, more than 40 percent of this low-quality \ol- 

 ume is in tiees too small to contain high-quality 

 logs. Future growth will convert much of this vol- 

 ume into logs of higher quality. 



The forests are made up chiefly of two types— 

 oak-hickory and mixed hardwoods. All other types 

 account for 23 percent of the commercial forest 

 area. They include the redcedar-hardwoods, bot- ■ 

 tom-land hardwoods, pine, oak-pine, wliite oak. 

 and beech-maple. 



Harvest aiid Manufacture of Timber.— In 1948 

 more than 208 million cubic feet of wood was cut 

 for primary wood products. Of this volume 77 per- 

 cent represented the cut of live sawtimber and pole- 

 timber. The remainder was saplings, upper stems 

 and limbs, dead trees, and wood cut from nonforest 

 areas such as fence rows and scattered trees. Of the 

 wood cut, 46 percent was used for fuelwood, but less 

 than half of this came from growing stock; 34 per- 

 cent was cut for sawlogs and all of this came from 

 growing stock; 20 percent was cut for all other 

 products, including mine timbers, fence posts, stave 

 bolts, veneer logs, and miscellaneous farm timbers, 

 and almost all of this came from growing stock. 



Primary wood products were further processed at 

 about 2,000 sawmills, 87 stave and headino; mills, 

 6 veneer mills, and 3 handle plants. These plants 

 used about 1.1 million man-days of labor. In addi- 

 tion, Kentucky has a number of remanufacturing 

 plants that turn out finished products such as furni- 

 ture, millwork, containers, flooring, and sporting 

 goods and playgroimd equipment. 



Annual Groiuth-Drain Balance.— The net growth 

 of sawtimber was nearly 1.2 billion board feet, while 

 in 1948 timber cutting removed 734 million board 



Kentucky's Forest Resources and Industries 



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