Treesearch

In October 1947 forest fires over-ran about 130,000 acres of forest land in southwestern Maine. Some 48,000 acres of merchantable timber were included in the fire area. Three-quarters of the saw-timber volume was white pine.

Aerial photos are a handy tool for the forester. They furnish forest data quickly. But when the photo is used as a map, care is necessary - especially in rough country. In flat country photo scales are quite uniform and distances can be measured accurately. But in rough country photo scale varies with changes in elevation, and it is more difficult to measure distances accurately. There are other factors that affect photo scale, but land elevation is the most important to foresters.

Buying wood stacked in 4-foot lengths is sometimes like buying a pig in a poke. A cord is simply a pile 4 by 4 by 8 feet, or 128 cubic feet. Even though wood piled this way may stack up to the specified dimensions, the actual mount of wood in the pile may vary greatly. The species, the size of the sticks, the thickness of the bark, the crookedness of the sticks, and the presence of protruding knots all have a bearing on the amount of solid wood that a pile contains. While one pile may be packed tightly, another may be full of big air holes. In this study, the factor most affecting the...

What is a reasonable efficiency for labor employed in yarding and hauling pulpwood under conditions found in Connecticut? That is one of the questions that woodland owners have been asking.

Poplars are among our fastest growing trees. Many of them are also relatively easy to grow from cuttings and to hybridize by means of cut flower-bearing twigs. Their wood is in demand for pulpwood, veneer for match and crate production, boxboards, and other uses. For these reasons there has been interest in many countries in selecting and breeding poplars. The tree breeder's goal has been the development of a tree which will produce large volumes of suitable wood on short rotations.

The management of aspen or popple (Populus tremuloides) has received little attention in the past, largely because of the former abundant supply of other and more valuable tree species in the Lake States. Because of a rapidly expanding market for all forest products during the past decade, particularly during the war, the attention and ingenuity of industry have turned toward the use of aspen. As a consequence, aspen has now become one of the important pulpwood species in the Lake States, and is used for many other products. That it will retain its place for some time to come seems quite...

Recent shortages of lumber for building purposes make it desirable to seek out all possible supplies of additional lumber. Aspen, according to a study made in northern Minnesota during 1944, may be a source of lumber largely untapped. The results of that study are the main basis of this paper. In the past, aspen has received little consideration as a source of lumber, largely because of the small-sized trees often harvested and some prejudice against the wood. However, because it is abundant and has many favorable characteristics, aspen can be used much more widely for lumber.

A plentiful supply of pine and cedar logs provided the early settlers of this country with a cheap and durable material for the construction of their homes and farm buildings. Only the axe and the ingenuity of the pioneer were needed to erect a shelter against the elements of nature. Early in the 19th century, the circular saw came into use resulting in a change in building construction. The pine stands in New England and in the Lake States, considered inexhaustible in the 19th century, were converted to lumber to construct buildings necessary for the rapid development of the country. Log...

Aspen is now the major forest type in the Lake States, and extensive stands are reaching maturity. Increasing quantities are being cut, and much is now being put to new and more exacting uses that require better air-seasoning and kiln-drying practices. The recent favorable market for green aspen lumber appears to be falling off, and the time may soon come when operators are no longer able to move green aspen. Such a change can be met by manufacturing better-quality aspen lumber and by carefully seasoning it to the desired moisture content to make it more acceptable. This report describes...

The clear wood of aspen has inherent properties of merit. Several of these properties are familiar to a large proportion of the general public, for some of the common types of matches are made of this wood. The requirements of wood for matches are exacting in that the wood must combine straightness of grain, ease of splitting, ease of working, and toughness. To meet such rigid requirements, a wood must be suitable for other uses as well. The fact that aspen is not used more widely for other purposes lies not in the wood itself but in other factors, such as cost, distribution of stand, and...