158 A MANUAL FOR NORTHERN WOODSMEN 
cubic feet to the cord. Smooth hard wood yields about the 
same. 
3. Still smaller round wood, wood that is crooked and 
knotty, and good split hard wood contains in solid wood 
about .6 of the outside contents of the pile or 77 cubic feet 
per cord. 
4. Small, crooked wood cut from limbs may run down 
as low as 27 solid cubic feet per cord. 
5. 1 The longer a lot of wood is cut, the greater will be 
the vacant space left in piling. Fair sized pulp wood, for 
instance, which when cut 4 feet long will measure a cord, 
if cut in 2-foot lengths will pile up in 2 to 3 per cent less 
space. The same wood, on the other hand, if cut 8 feet 
long and measured in the pile will measure nearly 6 per 
cent more; if 12 feet long, about 12 per cent more. 
Wood in thorough air-drying shrinks about 10 per cent 
on the average, hard woods as a rule more than soft. If 
wood checks and cracks freely, something like half the 
total shrinkage is taken up in this form. Two inches extra 
height in the pile are commonly allowed on green wood 
in Massachusetts. 
To Measure Wood in Cords. When the wood is 4 feet 
long, measure the height and length of the pile in feet, 
multiply together, and divide by 32. The result will be 
contents in cords. If the wood is more or less than 4 feet 
long, multiply length, width, and height of the pile together, 
and divide by 128. If wood is piled on sloping ground, 
the length and height should be measured perpendicular 
to one another. 
For measurement of logs into cord measure, see page 138. 
The French cord of the Province of Quebec is 8' 6" X 4' 
X 4' 3", containing, therefore, 144 cubic feet, as against 
128 for the cord current elsewhere. 
1 See Zon on this subject in Forestry Quarterly, Vol. I, No. IV. 
