Highway System, new pipeline and powerline 

 rights-of-way, mining activity, and the growth 

 of urban areas, the continued increase in total 

 forest area is more significant than indicated by 

 the percentage increase. 



Ninety-nine percent of the 11.6 million acres 

 of forest is classified as commercial forest land; 

 the remainder is classified as either unproduc- 

 tive forest or productive-reserved. Land area in 

 thfej productive-reserved category increased as a 

 re^ilt of administrative reclassification .of. 

 pdllic forest lands. Since 1961, the area "in"* 

 productive-reserved status has increased from 

 46,000 to 115,000 acres. 



Forests are distributed quite uniformly across 

 the entire state. All counties except Brooke and 

 Jefferson are 50 percent or more forested. Six 

 counties are over 85 percent forested. Webster 

 County has the distinction of being the most 

 heavily forested with 92 percent of its land area 

 in forest. 



Hardwood types predominate in West 

 Virginia. Sixty percent of the forest land is 

 classified in the oak-hickory forest type and 

 only 6 percent in all the softwood forest types. 

 The distribution of the hardwood forest types 

 shows some significant shifts since 1961. The 

 area in the oak-hickory type declined but an im- 

 portant local type in this group — yellow- 

 poplar — showed a significant increase. The area 

 in the oak-pine, the elm-ash-red maple, and the 

 maple-beech-birch types increased. 



A study of forest-land owners was conducted 

 in conjunction with this inventory. Two objec- 

 tives of this study were to define the pattern of 

 forest-land ownership more clearly and to seek 

 an understanding of the motives and intentions 

 of forest-land owners. Over 1 million acres of 

 commercial forest land is publically owned. All 

 of the Monongahela plus parts of the George 

 Washington and Jefferson National Forests ac- 

 count for 873 thousand acres. Most of the 

 remaining public lands are State-owned. An es- 

 timated 207,500 individuals, groups, or cor- 

 porations each own 1 acre or more of the 10,342,- 

 900 acres of private commercial forest land. In 

 the past, 81 percent of these owners have 

 harvested timber from their lands. The forest 

 land owned by those who have harvested timber 

 makes up 61 percent of the total private com- 

 mercial forest area. 



Volume Change 



Data from a second remeasurement of field 

 plots established in 1949 provided a history of 

 growth, mortality, and removals in the forest 

 during the past quarter century. Average an- 

 nual net growth of all growing stock was 35 

 cubic feet per acre during the past 14 years and 

 32.5 cubic feet per acre during the preceeding 12 

 years. In 1974 the annual growth of growing 

 stock was 41 cubic feet per acre and the ratio of 

 growth to removals was nearly 3 to 1. 



Part of the analysis of the current volume and 

 growth includes a procedure to determine 

 whether past volume and growth estimates are 

 directly comparable with the present estimate. 

 This procedure helps to locate inconsistencies in 

 the data and to evaluate differences that may 

 have occurred because of procedural or 

 definitional differences between inventory oc- 

 casions. This analysis of the West Virginia in- 

 ventory resulted in an adjustment of the 1961 

 inventory to reflect the standards, procedures, 

 and definitions used in 1975. 



Here are the figures, adjusted as described 

 above, showing the trends: 



Growing stock volume: 

 (million cubic feet) 



Softwoods 



Hardwoods 



Total 



Sawtimber volume: 

 (million board feet) 



Softwoods 



Hardwoods 



Total 



1961 



557 

 10,320 



1975 Change 



995 

 12,520 



+ 438 

 +2,200 



10,877 13,515 



2,638 



1,378 

 20,560 



2,600 +1,222 

 25,031 +4,471 



21,938 27,631 



5,693 



Growing Stock and Sawtimber 

 Volume Continue to Increase 



Timber volume increased rapidly in West 

 Virginia between 1949 and 1961. Much of this in- 

 crease resulted from ingrowth, i.e., trees 

 previously too small to be measured for volume 

 had reached the minimum size required to be 

 classified as growing stock. This surge of in- 

 growth into the minimum recognized diameter 

 class has slowed. Three-fifths of the gross 

 growth between 1961 and 1975 was accretion, 

 i.e., volume added to trees that were already of 

 growing-stock size. The average growing-stock 

 volume per acre in West Virginia was 1,177 



2 



