Figure 6.8 ■- 



Timber Supply to and Output from Domestic IVIills, 1976 



Timber Supply to Domestic Mills — 12.5 Billion Cubic Feet 



Lumber 2.6 



Output from Domestic Mills 



Plywood and Veneer 



Pulpwood — Domestic Mills 6.1 



Chip Exports 



Particleboard 



.3 



.3 



Other Industrial 



Fuelwood 



1.4 



Res 



idues .5 



fourth of the solid wood waste and one-seventh of the 

 urban tree removals. The remainder of this material is 

 disposed of in landfills, dumps, or incinerators. 



Possibilities for Improvement 



Some improvement in utilization of dead or defec- 

 tive timber on National Forests has been made possi- 

 ble by establishment of a fund, pursuant to the 

 National Forest Management Act of 1976, which can 

 be used to pay Forest Service costs of preparing and 

 administering salvage timber sales. However, in most 

 cases, current market prices for such materials are 

 lower than the costs of harvest and transport to mills. 

 Thus, a major need is for techniques and equipment 

 that will reduce these costs. Important progress is 

 now underway on mechanized systems that allow 

 rapid collection — and in some cases, onsite chipping 

 for fuel or pulpwood — of whole stems or trees. Im- 

 provements are also being made in ue of aerial systems 



of logging to reduce road construction needs and to 

 permit harvesting of timber on areas where environ- 

 mental impacts would otherwise be unacceptable. 



Another opportunity to reduce waste in timber 

 harvest is through quality control in felling and buck- 

 ing. Studies both in the United States and Canada 

 have shown that such control could add several per- 

 cent to sawlog and veneer log output. 



Improved lumber and plywood processing tech- 

 nology can extend timber supplies substantially. Par- 

 ticularly important is the need for cost-effective sys- 

 tems of manufacturing lumber and plywood from 

 small-diameter logs and short logs. Promising ap- 

 proaches include high-speed electronic scanning and 

 automated control systems, gluing techniques to pro- 

 duce wide-width or long-length products equivalent 

 to lumber sawn from large logs, and automated grad- 

 ing systems. Another developing possibility is tech- 

 niques for producing and marketing construction 

 lumber from hardwoods such as yellow-poplar and 

 aspen. 



268 



