36 
BULLETIN 299, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Applying the foregoing mill-run or f. o. b. values to Table 16, 
taking $14 as an average cost of lumbering, would give stumpage 
values as follows : 
Size of 
trees in 
diameter, 
breast- 
high. 
Stumpage value per 1,000 
board feet. 
Low. 
Average. 
High. 
Inches. 
7 to 11 
12 to 16 
17 to 21 
$4.18 
7.82 
11.45 
$7.82 
12.36 
16.91 
$12. 36 
18.73 
22.36 
These values may appear too high, because in practice the operator 
is often at present able to purchase his stumpage for less than its 
real value and accordingly makes more than 10 per cent profit. 
This state of affairs, however, is rapidly disappearing as the supply 
of raw material diminishes; and the operator will finally be forced 
to do business on less rather than on more than a 10 per cent profit 
basis, especially when it comes to the purchase of second-growth 
timber grown at some expense under forest management. Further, 
it must be remembered that the timber grower is not at the mercy 
of the market so much as the manufacturer and the farmer, because 
he can more easily hold his goods until better prices obtain. 
Probably a record price for ash stumpage was paid in 1913 in 
east-central Illinois (near the Indiana line) when $32 per thousand 
board feet was paid for a quarter million feet of old-growth white 
ash, while on the same tract, $125 per thousand board feet was paid 
for black walnut, $24.75 for white oak, and $18.05 for hickory. 
ADVISABILITY OF FOREST MANAGEMENT OF ASH. 
The growing of ash timber, under proper management, will some- 
times pay 6 per cent or better on the money invested, where good 
yields per acre and good stumpage prices are obtained. This is 
shown by Table 18, which gives the compound-interest rates (where 
3 per cent or over) to be realized on different initial investments in 
growing ash where the yields indicated in Table 15 are obtained and 
where the stumpage is worth $5, $10, $15, or $20 per thousand 
board feet. 
