hardwood. By individual types, 3.4 million acres 
was upland hardwoods (fig. 25), 1 million acres was 
Virginia pine, 870,000 acres was shortleaf pine (fig. 
26) , 580,000 acres was loblolly pine (fig. 27), and the 
balance was in three less extensive types. In the up- 
land hardwood type, the cordwood area exceeded the 
saw-timber area by nearly one-half million acres. 
Virginia pine was the only other type in which the 
cordwood area exceeded the saw-timber area, in this 
case by 323,000 acres. One reason for this is the 
naturally short life and small size of the species. An- 
other is the intense demand for pine saw timber in 
the Piedmont, where Virginia pine is most abundant. 
Only 5 percent of the forest area, or 704,000 acres, 
was Classed as reproduction. Such a small area speaks 
well for the recuperative powers of the forests of 
Virginia. 
In interpreting these data on acreage of forest con- 
ditions, a word of caution is in order. It can be said 
with certainty that there is a vast acreage of land in 
Virginia now producing or capable of producing tim- 
ber, and that there is very little of the area which does 
not have a nucleus of growing stock sufficient to yield 
a satisfactory volume of wood if given adequate pro- 
tection and time to grow. It is also true, on the other 
hand, that much land supports inferior species, that 
most areas have only one-third to one-half full stock- 
ing, and that not all the saw-timber area is commer- 
cially operable because of small volumes per acre in 
poor-quality trees. 
Age of Stands 
Old-field stands are generally even-aged. Forest- 
grown stands commonly contain several age classes, 
except where the stand has come in after heavy cut- 
ting. The old-growth stands in the pine types are 
more than 100 years old, whereas second-growth saw 
timber is 40 to 45 years old, and cordwood stands are 
chiefly 20 to 30 years. These ages are the average 
for all sites; on good sites, pine will attain sawlog size 
at an earlier age. 
Hardwood forests usually contain a mixture of re- 
production, saplings, and sawlog-size trees, the pro- 
portion of each varying with the forest condition, 
Old-field sweetgum or yellow-poplar stands, however, 
are commonly even-aged. Other even-aged hardwood 
stands are occasionally found as_a result of prompt 
restocking after heavy cutting, or more rarely as old- 
growth timber without an understory of younger trees. 
Old-growth hardwood stands exceed 100 years of age, 
some individual trees being several hundred years old. 
y 
Second-growth saw timber averages 50 to 70 years — 
old, and cordwood stands are 25 to 30 years of age. 
To produce an annual sustained yield of wood, a 
forest should consist of a series of timbered areas ap- 
proximately equal in potential productivity, and vary- 
ing in age by roughly even intervals from the youngest 
to the oldest age class. The proportionate area re- 
quired in each age class will vary with the length of 
rotation which, in turn, will vary with financial con- 
siderations, products being grown, site quality, and 
other factors. In general, pine sawlogs can be grown 
in Virginia in 25 to 40 years, depending on the site, 
but it takes 60 years or more to grow high-quality saw 
timber. With hardwood saw timber, the minimum 
rotation is about 60 years, but 80 to 100 years is usu- 
ally needed to obtain high-quality timber. Yellow- 
poplar and sweetgum will produce small saw timber 
in 50 to 60 years. 
The distribution of age classes in the hardwood types 
favors continuous production of saw timber (fig. 28) 
because it approaches the ideal forest just described. 
The bottom-land hardwoods type has the best distri- 
bution. The loblolly and shortleaf pine stands have 
about the right area in stands less than 25 years old, 
somewhat too much in the 26- to 55-year age group, 
and a shortage in the two oldest age groups, if an ample 
supply of high-quality saw timber is the objective. 
Virginia pine is a short-lived species, not too desirable 
for lumber, and its age-class distribution favors con- 
tinuous yields of pulpwood. 
FOREST AGE CLASS (YEARS) 
IRE l=25 56-85 | 86+ 
{sen [ra] jeu] 
Ea! 
LOBLOLLY PINE 
SHORTLEAF PINE 
VIRGINIA PINE 
BOTTOM-LAND HDWDS. 
COVE HDWDS. 
UPLAND HDWDS. 
ALL TYPES 
O 10 20 30 40 50 600 10 20 30 40 50 600 {10 201300 10 20 
AREA (PERCENT) 
Ficure 28.—Proportionate distribution of area of each forest 
type by age class. 
Site Quality 
It is a common but false belief that any land too 
poor for agricultural crops or improved pasture will, 
if devoted to “forestry,” grow successive crops of good 
timber. Actually some land is too poor to do even 
that; it may grow trees, but not commercial timber. 
Such land has been classed herein as “noncommer- 
cial.” Other land, in the commercial class, may grow 
20 Miscellaneous Publication 681, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
