4 BULLETIN 152, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
AMOUNT OF STANDING TIMBER. 
Reliable estimates of the amount of standing hemlock are very 
difficult to obtain, because of the widely varying proportion which 
the tree forms of the mixed forests in which is usually grows. For 
this reason past estimates have been greatly at variance with one 
another. Thus the total stand was estimated to be 20,165 million 
board feet in 1880 by C. S. Sargent; 56,571 million board feet in 
1903 by R. A. Long; 100 billion board feet in 1905 by the American 
Lumberman; and 75 billion in 1909 by R. S. Kellogg. In 1880 
Sargent estimated the amounts of standing hemlock in Pennsylvania, 
New York, and New Hampshire to be 4J billion, 3 billion, and 165 
million board feet, respectively. The stand in Pennsylvania was 
estimated to be 5 billion board feet in 1896 by Dr. B. E. Fernow, and 
10 billion board feet in 1907 by J. E. Defebaugh. 
By far the most careful estimates are those for the Lake States pre- 
pared by the Bureau of Corporations in 1910. 1 According to these 
the amount of standing hemlock in the Lake States is 26.6 billion 
board feet, of which Michigan has 15 billion and Wisconsin 11.6 
billion. Hemlock comprises 34.6 per cent of all the standing timber 
in both States — 31.5 per cent of that in Michigan, and 39.7 per cent of 
that in Wisconsin. Compared with these estimates the production 
of hemlock lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin during 1909 repre- 
sented 4.1 per cent and 6.1 per cent, respectively, of the total stand. 
For all species combined this relation was 4 per cent and 6.9 per cent, 
respectively, which makes it evident that the cutting of hemlock pro- 
ceeds at a rate very close to the average for all species — more rapid 
than for hardwoods and much slower than for pine. 
Hemlock may form a very small or a very large proportion of the 
forest, while between these extremes are all gradations. One of the 
largest remaining stands of hemlock in the Lake States is on the 
Menominee Indian Reservation. The total stand of all species was 
estimated about 1910 to contain 1,750,000,000 board feet, running 
15,000 per acre, of which more than 40 per cent, or 6,000 per acre, 
was hemlock, the timber varying in size from 6 to 33 logs to the thou- 
sand board feet. 
In 1905 and 1906 the Forest Service 2 secured from local timber 
operators estimates of the amount of standing timber in each county 
of the Southern Appalachian region. The estimate of standing 
hemlock was as follows : 
Board feet. Board feet. 
Georgia 205, 000, 000 
Kentucky 452, 000, 000 
Maryland 60, 000, 000 
North Carolina 668, 000, 000 
South Carolina 93, 000, 000 
Tennessee 1, 387, 000, 000 
Virginia 505, 000, 000 
West Virginia •. 3, 550, 000, 000 
Total •. . 6, 920, 000, 000 
i Report on the Lumber Industry, Part I: Standing Timber. Washington, Government Printing 
Office, 1913. 
2 Study of Forest Conditions of the Southern Appalachians, under the direction of Walter Mulford. 
