The timber did not sell by bids. There was little interest among local buyers
in bidding, probably because they were not accustomed to timber cruises,
estimates and bid sales. It is more common in the area for timber buyers to
simply approach a landowner and make an offer based on a guess by the buyer as
to an amount that they are sure will make them a profit.
The few bids received were too low and were rejected. I approached a team of
local loggers with whom I had done business in the past. When they expressed
interest in a logging job, I gave them three choices. They could pay me
$57,000 for the standing timber, I would pay them $150.00 per mbf for logging
and hauling the timber to local buyers within a 50 mile radius, or I would pay
them 30% of the sales price of the logs for logging and hauling. They chose
the 30% option. They logged the area from February to July.
The logs were yarded near the sale area and buyers were asked to bid on the
logs. They were sold to a total of five different local sawmills. The totals
were:
Timber Sales bd. ft dollars $/mbf
169,970 81,611.95 480
My cruise estimate 160,000 80,000 500
@ 150/mbf 25,496 logging
@ 30% 24,484 logging
@ $57,000 24,612 logging
70% 57,128 stumpage
589 trees 298 bd. ft. per tree $138.56 per tree
Then we estimated that we had only cut over about 32 acres so I marked trees
on an additional 8 acres or so and the loggers logged that at a price of $150
per mbf:
Timber Sales bd. ft dollars $/mbf
subtotal 28,551 12,103.49 424
Totals 198,341 93,715.44 472
150/mbf logging 4,282.65
stumpage 7,820.84
40 acres
695 trees
198,341 board feet
$93,715 total
$64,949 stumpage
17.4 trees /acre
4,958 bd. ft./acre
285 bd.ft./tree
$472 per mbf total
$327 per mbf stumpage
$135 per tree total
$93.45 per tree stumpage
$1,624/acre stumpage
In practice there were three harvests since we have owned the farm, in 1963, 1973 and 1983, over the entire woodland. These harvests were high grades in the sense that only larger trees were harvested and smaller trees were not selected to remove to improve the remaining woodland. In general these harvests included only trees with a stump diameter 22 inches or larger.
In 1993 a 40 acre cutting area was harvested which also included only larger trees harvested.
In 2000 a 50 year old southern pine plantation of 16 acres was clearcut due to an infestation of southern pine beetle. Another ten acres of storm damaged red cedar was harvested and a number of larger mature hardwood trees were harvested from fencerows and edges of fields.
In 2007 a 40 acre cutting area was marked for selective harvest and the results of that are on this and other related web pages. In this harvest the goal was to select economically mature crop trees which had reached a point of diminishing returns as far as growth and expected economic yield and to cut additional trees which were either defective or which were expected to compete with selected crop trees which would be harvestable in 30 to 50 more years.
Criteria for selecting crop trees for harvest were generally to select those from desirable timber species which were at least 22 inches dbh and those from intermediate value species which were at least 18 inches dbh and all marketable trees of undesirable timber species as well as defective, cull, and overcrowded trees of whatever species.
Click on any picture below for a larger version.
This group of pictures are as the area looked before harvest. This was about 24 years after any timber had been cut in this area.
These are estimates of the results of the clear cut harvest above: (when this timber harvest took place log prices were about 10% lower than the previous harvest four years before.) 40 acres 2000 trees 320,000 board feet $96,000 total $68,000 stumpage 50 trees /acre 8,000 bd. ft./acre 160 bd.ft./tree $300 per mbf total $212 per mbf stumpage $48 per tree total $34 per tree stumpage $1,700/acre stumpage
Last revised April 4, 2014.
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