more timber is being cut for each of three other 
products, fuel wood, posts, and pulpwood, than for 
lumber. 
During the period from 1939 through 1948 an 
average of 94 million cubic feet of live, sound 
timber was cut yearly. This drain has two com- 
ponents which are discussed later. Ninety-three 
percent of the timber cut, or 528 million board feet, 
was of saw-timber size, that is, 11.0 inches in 
diameter and larger. The other 7 percent of the 
drain came from pole-timber trees, 5.0 to 11.0 inches 
in diameter, and amounted to 93,000 cords an- 
nually. 
The average annual commodity drain on Mon- 
tana’s forest growing stock for timber products 
is as follows: 
Average annual commodity drain. 
1939—48 
Live saw Live pole 
timber timber Total 
(million (thousand (million 
bd. ft.) cords) cu. ft.) 
Western Montana .......... 479 38 81 
Eastern Montana eee 51 13 
otal. = eee 28 89 94 
This excludes the production from dead and cull 
trees (primarily for fuel wood and fence posts) 
which amounts to almost one-tenth of the total 
production, but it includes logging waste, that is, 
live timber either cut or damaged beyond recovery 
in the course of logging operations but not used. 
Eighty-seven percent of the volume of the trees 
cut and damaged is taken out of the woods. The 
rest is left to rot. 
Figure 29 compares the commodity drain with 
the growth figures presented earlier. In eastern 
© 
Montana the volume of timber is increasing be- 
cause of an excess of growth over drain. In western 
Montana the volume of all timber 5.0 inches and 
larger is likewise increasing, although the saw- 
timber volume is declining. Because the logging 
activity is on the whole poorly distributed in west- 
ern Montana, many areas are being heavily cut 
and the saw-timber growing stock decline in these 
areas is even more rapid than for western Montana 
as a whole. 
ANNUAL CHANGE IN 
GROWING STOCh 
ALL TIMBER 
+ 131,000,000 
CUBIC FEET 
SAW TIMBER 
+ 211,000,000 
BOARD FEET 
+16,000,000 
CUBIC FEET 
00,000 
S58 BOARD 
EASTERN WESTERN lea 
MONTANA MONTANA 
EASTERN 
MONTANA 
MONTANA 
FIGURE 29. 
34 Forest Resource Report No. 5 U. 8. Department of Agriculture 
