| new plants utilize low-grade hardwoods and do not 
specialize in the high-grade hardwoods, which are 
) being cut almost as heavily as the pines. Among the 
_ products which could be increasingly produced are 
furniture, sports equipment, toys, woodenware, spools, 
toothpicks, buttons, dowels, shade and map rollers, 
boot and shoe findings, mine wedges, and novelties. 
That a concentrated cut is at present depleting the 
best grades and sizes in the more desirable species of 
hardwoods points to the necessity of greater use of 
poor-quality material. One-fifth (26 million cords) 
of the total hardwood volume in trees 5 inches d. b. h. 
and over is cull, and an additional large volume is in 
such species of limited merchantability as scarlet, post, 
and water oaks, elms, sycamore, and hickory. Failure 
to use a greater proportion of this large volume of 
wood is not only a waste of raw material but also poor 
forest management. Timber operators cannot be 
expected to cut and process species or grades which 
they cannot sell, or can sell only at a loss. Greater 
utilization, therefore, depends on finding profitable 
markets for this material. 
For example, there is an opportunity for using a 
much larger volume of cull material and hardwood 
tops and limbs for fuel wood throughout the State, 
thereby reducing the volume of sound saw timber used 
for this purpose. In the period 1940-45 the average 
annual hardwood saw-timber drain going into fuel 
wood was 25.9 million board feet. None of this 
volume came from cull trees or from top wood of 
sound trees; all of it was from sound saw-timber grow- 
ing stock, mostly oak. Some of it, no doubt, came 
from oaks and other species not presentiy in heavy de- 
mand, but most of it was material readily merchant- 
able as sawlogs. There are better uses for this 26 
million feet of hardwood saw timber than using it for 
fuel wood, so long as overabundant quantities of suit- 
able material are available from cull trees, top wood, 
and mill waste. 
Most of the 2.5 million cords of cull blackgum and 
tupelo is suitable for pulp and is entering increasingly 
into this product. With the increased pulping of 
hardwoods now under way, this industry can mate- 
rially aid in utilizing previously unmerchantable species 
and grades, at least of gums, soft maple, yellow- 
poplar, some of the oaks, and other pulping species. 
The people in the mountains commonly use poor- 
quality oaks and other hardwoods for rough construc- 
tion lumber for houses and farm buildings. The build- 
ings so constructed are satisfactory, indicating the de- 
sirability of a greater use of similar material in the 
- Piedmont and Coastal Plain to help reduce the present 
Virginia Forest Resources and Industries 
heavy cut of pine and the surplus of poor-quality hard- 
woods. Other possibilities in this field include the 
popularizing of now unwanted but satisfactory species 
by the manufacturers of furniture, novelties, and 
other minor products. 
Standardized Log Grades 
The current practices of buying stumpage on a 
lump-sum basis, i. e., so much for the tract, and of buy- 
ing logs at the mill on a log-run basis are a deterrent 
to good forest management. Even where logs are 
sold on grade, the grades commonly differ at each 
mill. Consequently, logs are rarely sold at a price 
based on grade yields of lumber. Both timber owners 
and timber operators suffer from these practices, since 
the owner almost inevitably gets a lower price for his 
stumpage and the operator cannot specify the logs 
suitable to his particular products or type of operation. 
The development and use of standard log grades for 
pine and for hardwoods would solve both difficulties 
and would be an incentive toward better cutting 
practices. 
Ways to Accomplish Needed Improvements 
To meet the needs of the forest, simultaneous efforts 
by all organizations and individuals—local, State, 
Federal, and private—offer the best chance for funda- 
mental improvement. Among the large number of 
possible actions are numerous aids and services to pri- 
vate Owners, expansion and intensified management 
of public forests, and public control of cutting and 
other forest practices on private land. 
One essential to getting good forest practices in 
effect is a full-scale, State-wide education program in 
the woods, with on-the-ground technical assistance to 
timber owners. People must be told and shown 
again and again that timber stand improvement, thin- 
ning, and sustained-yield cutting pay short-term and 
long-term dividends. They have to learn that, with 
present-day heavy use, the days when the forest took 
care of itself are over. They must be taught common- 
sense methods of timber stand improvement, thinning, 
and harvest cutting so that how to do it and when to 
do it are common knowledge. To be effective, this 
educational campaign has to be aimed directly at the 
174,000 small forest owners who control approxi- 
mately 80 percent of Virginia’s woodlands. Personal 
contacts with so large a number of individuals are dif- 
ficult and costly, but these are the key people. Two- 
thirds of their land is unmanaged and poorly or de- 
structively cut. 
53 
a 
: 
F 
