60 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AMERICAS FUTURE 



maple, yellow birch, beech, and soft maple, which 

 more than compensated for the increases in other 

 species, notably basswood 6 percent, oak 25 per- 

 cent, and aspen nearly 200 percent. 



Small Trees Lack Quality 



For lumber, veneer, and similar end uses, small 

 size is an important limitation. Generally added 

 growth means better quality untU overmaturity 

 and decay set in. Small trees have few high- 

 quality logs. As yet, tree size does not appear to 

 be a major factor in the West because of the con- 

 centration of volume in old-gi'owth stands. This 

 is apparent from the distribution of sawtimber 

 volume by species and diameter class groupings 

 shown in table 38. In the East, however, two- 

 fifths of the hardwood sawtimber volume and 

 two-thirds of all softwood sawtimber volume is in 

 trees of 15 inches and less, and one-fourth of the 

 softwood volume is in the smallest (10-inch) diam- 

 eter class. If quality of growth roughly corre- 

 sponds to quality of standing timber, from 40 to 

 70 percent of the sawtimber growth of eastern 

 species is on trees too small to yield high-quality 

 logs. 



Table 38. 



-Distribution of sawtimber volume by 

 tree-diameter class, 1953 



WEST 



Tree-diameter 

 class (inches) 



All west- 

 ern 

 soft- 

 woods 



Douglas- 

 fir 



Ponder- 



osa and 



Jeffrey 



pines 



Sugar 



and 



western 



white 



pine 



12 through 20 



22 through 30 



32 and larger 



Percent 

 23 

 27 

 50 



Percent 

 18 

 23 

 59 



Percent 

 20 

 36 

 44 



Percent 

 21 

 20 

 59 



All classes 



100 



100 



100 



100 



EAST 



Tree-diameter class 

 (inches) 



All east- 

 ern 

 species 



Soft- 

 wood 



Hard- 

 wood 



10 



Percent 



9 



42 



27 



22 



Percent 

 24 

 43 

 21 

 12 



Percent 



12 and 14_ 



42 



16 and 18 



30 



20 and larger 



28 



All classes 



100 



100 



100 



In a few places, information is available from 

 timber inventories about trends in tree size. For 

 example, between 1935 and 1948 softwood trees 

 in Mississippi 20 inches and larger decreased 42 



percent in number. In the South Atlantic Region 

 between 1930 and 1953 surveys, the volume of soft- 

 wood sawtimber trees 20 inches and larger declined 

 31 percent whUe the volume of hardwood trees in 

 the same size class increased slightly. 



Quality Species Are Diminishing 



For most end uses, certain species are con- 

 sidered more desirable than others. Successive 

 surveys show that less desirable species are tending 

 to displace preferred species in both the East and 

 the West. In the South, the longleaf-slash pine 

 type is losing ground to the lobloUy-shortleaf pine 

 type, which in turn is being replaced in some 

 places by aggressive hardwood types. The once 

 extensive white pine type of the Lake States has 

 been reduced to about a million acres and has 

 been replaced by an aspen-birch type. Hardwoods 

 tend to supplant softwoods in some spruce-fir and 

 white pine stands in the Northeast. Among the 

 oaks, which comprise three-eighths of eastern 

 hardwood growth, it is estimated that 55 percent 

 of the growth is attributable to the less desirable 

 species. In the West, other conifers are not 

 imcommonly superseding the more valuable white 

 pine, Douglas-fir, and ponderosa pine. 



Trend in Wood Properties Indicates 

 Quality Decline 



Wood-qualit}'^ evaluation studies during the last 

 quarter century indicate a decline in intrinsic 

 wood qualit}^ The heavily cut, understocked, 

 second-growth hardwoods of the East yield wood 

 that is generally inferior to old-growth timber. 

 This rapidly grown product is heavier, coarser, 

 stronger, and tougher than the old-growth timber, 

 but is definitely poorer with respect to texture, 

 grain pattern, dimensional stability, machining 

 properties, and other characteristics required for 

 fine furniture, cabinets, interior trim, and similar 

 quality uses. The basic quality of valuable soft- 

 woods has likewise declined. The largely under- 

 stocked pineries of the South, for example, are 

 producing wide-ringed low-density wood that is 

 low in fiber yield, low in mechanical strength, and 

 high in shrinkage along the grain, and that has a 

 marked tendency to warp. A similar situation is 

 developing in second-growth stands of such 

 western softwoods as Douglas-fir and ponderosa 

 pine. 



Quality Will Continue To Be Needed 



In appraising quality, two opposing trends are 

 evident. One is the apparent decline in quality 

 of raw material, the other is technological progress 

 to overcome this decline. To a considerable 

 degree, these two trends offset each other. There 

 are extremists who believe that quality of the 



