234 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE 



Access was denied to the recently cut lands of 

 six large ownerships comprising a total of 1.5 

 million acres. The areas of these six ownerships 

 are included in statistics of total commercial 

 forest area by various size classes and types of 

 ownership. The operating area of these owner- 

 ships and the productivity of recently cut lands 

 on them was not ascertained and are therefore 

 not included in any statistics of operating area or 

 productivity. 



Ownership Classification 



All preceding related surveys have shown the 

 importance of ownership. Hence a basic con- 

 sideration prior to field examination was the 

 classification of forest ownerships. For purposes 

 of this survey, each ownership was classified both 

 as to size class of commercial forest land and type 

 of ownership. The classifications used are as 

 follows : 



Size classification for private ownerships 



Class 1, 50,000 acres or more, Large owners 

 Class 2, 5,000-50,000 acres, Medium owners 

 Class 3, under 5,000 acres, Small owners 

 Class 3a, 500-5,000 acres 

 Class 3b, 100-500 acres 

 Class 3c, less than 100 acres 



Minimum size limits adopted for Class 3c were 

 3 acres in the East and 10 acres in the West. 



Classification by type of owner, all ownerships 



Private forest lands 

 l.-Farm 



2. Lumber manufacturer 



3. Pulp manufacturer 



4. Other wood manufac- 



turers 



5. Other private 



1. 



Public forest lands 

 National forest 



2. Bureau of Land Man- 



agement 



3. Indian 



4. Other Federal 



5. State, county, municipal 



The term "forest industry ownerships" as used 

 in subsequent discussions refers to the combined 

 ownership of lumber manufacturers, pulp manu- 

 factvu"ers, and other wood manufacturers. 



Method of Expressing Results 



With a productivity class determined for the 

 recently cut portion of each forest type on every 

 ownership examined, a number of alternatives are 

 available for expressing final results. The earlier 

 discussion of previous related appraisals has shown 

 that volume, several measures of area, and num- 

 bers of owners have all been used to weight or 

 average the findings. Careful study was devoted 

 to a number of alternatives. The results showed 



that some methods emphasize the "upper" 

 aspects, some the "lower." Such extremes are in- 

 herent in these methods. The one finally adopted 

 gives results falling between the extremes shown 

 by others. 



Briefl}^, the method adopted consists of the fol- 

 lowing steps: 



1. 



ex- 



Determination, for every ownership 

 amined, of the area of each forest type in 

 which cutting had been done since January 1 , 

 1947. Each area was considered to be a unit 

 of "operating area." The sum of such units 

 for a single ownership was defined as the 

 "operating area" of the ownership. The 

 stun of the "operating areas" for all the 

 ownerships in a given size class is thus the 

 "operating area" within that ownership size 

 class. 



2. Assignment of each unit of operating area to 

 the productivity class within which it falls for 

 the particular tabulation desired, whether it 

 be ownership class, region, or a combination 

 of these two. 



3. Calculation of the percentage of all operating 

 area in each productivity class. 



This process can be illustrated by assuming 

 that a forest ownership of 600 acres contained 

 three forest types of 200 acres each with a part of 

 each of two types cut since January 1, 1947. 

 Here the operating area is confined to the two 

 types mth cutting. The operating areas for the 

 ownership is thus 400 acres. Assume fiu*ther that 

 the recently cut portion of one type was found to 

 be in the upper productivity class, while the 

 recently cut portion of the second type was found 

 to be in the lower productivity class. In this 

 example, the 6t)0-acre ownership would contribute 

 200 acres of operating area to the upper produc- 

 tivity class of final tabulations and also 200 acres 

 to the lower productivity class. Note that aver- 

 age ratings for individual ownerships were not 

 used. Had they been used, the entire operating 

 area of 400 acres would probably have been as- 

 signed to the medium productivity class. Thus 

 the final results provide an expression of the range 

 in productivity class over the operating area. 

 Under concepts of the Reappraisal, the entire 600 

 acres of the ownership would have been assigned 

 to a single class. 



The Survey on an Individual Ownership 



The major steps in field procedure are summar- 

 ized by using a hypothetical small ownership as an 

 example. Figure 79 is a map of such an area. It 

 is part of a sample that comprises a given percent- 

 age of the land area being sampled. The areas 



