dead trees, mostly chestnut. Current utilization of 

 this material is limited chiefly to fuelwood, though 

 some chestnut is being cut for pulpwood and tannin 

 extract wood. About one-half billion cubic feet of the 

 total is in pine and soft-textured hardwoods con- 

 sidered suitable for pulping. The increasing demand 

 for pulpwood may afford an opportunity to market a 

 much greater portion of this material than at present. 



Saw timber Volume 



The net volume of sawtimber in Tennessee totals 

 16.2 billion board-feet, International %-inch rule. 7 

 This rule, which closely approximates green lumber 

 tally, is used for all board-foot volumes in this report. 

 Included in the board-foot estimate are the sawlog 

 portions of merchantable hardwood trees at least 

 11.0 inches d. b. h. and softwoods 9.0 inches d. b. h. 

 and larger. 



Four-fifths of the sawtimber volume is in hard- 

 woods, one-fifth in softwoods (fig. 16). The oaks 

 are by far the principal species and account for 54 

 percent of the hardwood sawtimber. Hickories, 

 yellow-poplar, and gums, with over 1 billion board- 

 feet each, furnish an additional 28 percent of the 

 hardwood volume. All other species together com- 

 prise 18 percent of the hardwood volume although 

 individually none account for as much as 3 percent 

 of the total (fig. 17). Among the softwoods, southern 



BILLION 

 BD-FT 



EAST 



WEST 



SOFTWOOD 



Figure 16. — Sawtimber volume by Survey region, 1948—50. 



RED OAKS 



WHITE OAKS 



HICKORIES 



YELLOW-POPLAR 



GUMS 



OTHER HARDWOODS 



SOUTHERN PINES 



OTHER SOFTWOODS 

























1 34 

 BILLION BOARD-FEET 



7 Volume by the Doyle rule would total about three-fifths as 

 much for the State. 



Figure 17. — Sawtimber volume by species, 7948—50. 



pines (with shortleaf predominating) make up 71 

 percent of the sawtimber volume. Of the less abun- 

 dant softwoods, cypress is prominent only in the 

 west; redcedar only in the central region; and white 

 pine and hemlock only in the east. 



Although sawtimber stands occupy less than one- 

 quarter of the commercial forest, they contain almost 

 two-thirds of the sawtimber volume and they average 

 3,500 board-feet per acre (fig. 18). The remaining 

 sawtimber volume occurs in stands having less than 

 1,500 board-feet per acre. This latter volume in- 

 cludes not only residual trees from previous logging 

 operations, but also thrifty, young trees that have 

 recently attained sawtimber size. Under prevailing 

 economic conditions, much of the sawtimber in these 

 young-growth areas cannot be considered available, 

 because the volume per acre is generally too low to 

 support commercial sawlog operations. 



The average per-acre volume of sawtimber leaves 

 much to be desired. The total commercial forest 

 area only supports about 1,300 board-feet per acre. 

 In the heavily cutover west-central region, the volume 

 of sawtimber on the average acre is not much more 

 than 800 board-feet. By contrast, the highest regional 

 average — almost 1,800 board-feet per acpe — occurs 

 in west Tennessee, where there is a concentration of 

 bottom-land hardwood forests. In these forests the 

 trees grow rapidly and to large size, and commercial 

 cutting, because of higher standards of merchant- 

 ability, is lighter than in other types of forest. In all 

 regions, however, Tennessee's forests can support 

 considerably heavier volumes of timber. 



The low per-acre volumes are mirrored in the small 

 size of sawtimber trees. Past cutting has reduced the 

 average size of hardwood sawtimber to 14 inches 

 d. b. h.; of softwood to 12 inches. 



Tennessee's Timber Economy 



17 



