Timber Industry Opportunities In Selected Areas Of West Virginia

S2The availability of timber resources plays an important part in the location decision for the primary wood-using industrieslumber, particleboard, and woodpulp. This report contains the latest Forest Service statistics for the State of West Virginia. These data are based on a sampling scheme designed to get reasonable accurate data for areas smaller than the entire State. They are current as of January 1961.S3.

S2Work carried out by the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station in West Virginia in the past 12 years provides useful information about the relationships between tree d.b.h. and butt-log grade. The upper logs are not included in the relationships. Being smaller and containing more knots, these upper logs are generally of lower grade than the butt logs. Thus the average grade of all material in the sawlog portion of the tree is generally lower than the average grade of the butt log. In the West Virginia data, species differences in d.b.h.-grade relationship are readily apparent. This inherent tendency for species to have different proportions of the various grades in logs of the same size is a familiar phenomenon to grade-conscious foresters who work with hardwoods. The results in this paper provide a quantitative evaluation of this tendency for six of the local species.S3.