UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREST SERVICE

INTERMOUNTAIN FOREST & RANGE EXPERIMENT STATION

OGDEN

U.S. Forest Service Research Note INT-20

UTAH

1964

FOREST AREA AND TIMBER VOLUME IN WESTERN SOUTH DAKOTA +

A. P. Caporaso, Research Forester Division of Forest Economics and Recreation Research

ABSTRACT

Inventory of forests in Western South Dakota completed in 1960 reveals that this portion of the State has 1.3 million acres of commercial forest land with about 996 million cubic feet of merchantable wood. Ponderosa pine is the principal species on all but 23,000 acres of this commercial forest, and it makes

up 95 percent of the total cubic volume. of the timber is publicly owned.

In 1960, the forests of Western South Dakota covered 1,399,000 acres, which is about 2.9 percent of the State's total land area.~ Ninety-four percent of the West- ern South Dakota forest, or 1,311,000 acres (table 1), is commercially impor- tant for timber production and contains 3.4 billion board feet of sawtimber. The other 6 percent includes 20,000 acres of productive forest land reserved from

Eighty-three percent

commercial timber cutting and 68,000 acres that are incapable of producing trees of the size and quality that can be profitably used by forest industry.

About 957,000 acres (or 73 percent) of commercial forest land is National Forest, approximately 99 percent of which is in the Black Hills National Forest (table 2), with the remainder in the Custer

1Includes all of Harding, Butte, Lawrence, and Fall River Counties and all lands

west of the 103d meridian in Meade, Pennington, and Custer Counties.

See map, p. 2.

“Information on forest area and volume reported in this Note are part of the re- sults of the first comprehensive forest inventory of Western South Dakota. The 1960 timber survey was completed through the combined efforts of the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Sta- tion, and Region 2 (the Rocky Mountain Region) of the Forest Service, U.S. Department

of Agriculture.

103°

i PENNINGTON

National Forest in Harding County. Col- lectively, farmers are the second largest ownership group. Altogether they own 224,000 acres of commercial forest.

There is relatively little nonstocked commercial forest land in these seven counties (only 16,000 acres) and only 45,000 acres of seedling and sapling stands (table 3). Sawtimber covers 708,000 acres and _ pole-size timber 542,000 acres.

The commercial forest land is domi- nated by softwood timber (table 4). Pon- derosa pine, the principal species in the locality, predominates on 98 percent of the total area, or 1,288,000 acres. White spruce, the only other commercially im- POrtane tree in this area, is the most important species on 23,000 acres.

The total cubic volume in merchant- able live trees 5 inches in diameter and

larger is nearly 996 million’ cubic feet (table 5). Although sawtimber stands oc- cupy more than half of the commercial forest area, a rather high proportion of the totalvolume is in smaller size stems. Seventy-six percent of the total cubic-foot volume is in trees smaller than 15.0 inches, and 46 percentis in trees smaller thany 1), Oanches®

About 95 percent of the cubic-foot volume is ponderosa pine. White spruce and hardwoods make up the remaining 5 percent. Publicly owned forests account for 83 percent of this volume or 829 mil- lion etbire feet,

The estimate of 1,098,000 acres of commercial forest land within the bound- ary of the Black Hills National Forest (all ownerships inclusive) was determined by a 100-percent type mapping from aerial photos. Therefore, 84 percent of the com- mercial forest area estimate for Western

South Dakota has no sampling error. The remaining portion, 213,000 acres, was determined from a sampling procedure on aerial photos and has a sampling error of +3.45 percent. The sampling error for the estimate of total cubic-foot volume of

Table 1.--Area of forest land by land classes, Western South Dakota, 1960

Land class ‘Thousand acres Commercial forest land* ieeow at Unproductive forest land= 68 Productive--reserved

forest land® 20 Total forest land 1,399 Nonforest land 5,493 All land 6,892

+ Forest land that is producing or is capable of producing crops of industrial wood and is not with- drawn from timber utilization.

= Forest land incapable of growing crops of in- dustrial wood because site conditions are adverse.

growing stock is 5.6 percent. These er- rors are on the basis of odds of two out of three that values which would result from a 100-percent inventory would lie within the range indicated by the error.

Table 2.--Area of commercial forest land by owner- ship classes, Western South Dakota, 1960

Ownership class Thousand acres

National Forest 957 Other Federal: Bureau of Land Management 2 Indian+ == Miscellaneous Federal 1 Total other Federal 10 State 62 County and municipal -- Farmer-owned 224 Miscellaneous private 58 All ownerships Mi Lt

1 Indian tribal lands and trust allotments, that is lands held in fee by the Federal Government but ad- ministered and managed for Indian tribal groups o1 allotted in trust to individual Indians.

Table 3.--Area of commercial forest land by stand-size and ownership classes for Western South Dakota, 1960

Stand-size class

Sawtimber stands + Poletimber stands*

Sapling and seedling stands * Nonstocked area*

All classes iow tal

All ownerships

Public Private Se eeces MhousanG acres —. ha ae 609 99 373 169 34 11 13 3 1,029 282

* Stands at least 10 percent stocked with growing stock trees with a minimum net volume per acre of 1,500 board feet (International }-inch rule) in sawtimber trees (9.0 inches d.b.h. and larger).

= Stands failing to meet the sawtimber stand specifications, but at least 10 percent stocked with poletimber and larger (5.0 inches d.b.h. and larger) trees and with at least half the minimum stock-

ing in poletimber trees.

trees (less than 5.0 inches d.b.h.).

* An area not qualifying as a sawtimber, poletimber, or a sapling seedling stand; i.e., normally

an area less than 10 percent stocked.

Table 4.--Area of commercial forest land, by forest types and ownership classes for Western South Dakota, 1960

a = ee See

Forest type All ownerships ; Public ownerships : Private ownerships

a i a Mmhousandjacres —-3—)—) oe

Ponderosa pine 1,288 1,008 280 White spruce 23 21 2 All types t3lt 1,029 282

Table 5--Volume of growing stock and sawtimber on commercial forest land by species for Western South Dakota, 1960

Species Growing stock? [ Sawtimber Thousand cubic feet Thousand board feet~

Ponderosa pine 945,330 3,221,492

White spruce 45,726 201,207

Hardwoods 4,679 7,228

Total 995,735 3,429,927

+ Growing stock volume: Net volume in cubic feet of live merchantable sawtimber trees and pole- timber trees from a 1-foot stump to a minimum 4.0-inch top inside bark. = International }-inch rule.

Table 6.--Volume of growing stock and sawtimber Table 7.--Volume of growing stock and sawtimber on commercial forest land by ownership on commercial forest land, by stand-size classes, Western South Dakota, 1960 classes, Western South Dakota, 1960 Ownership class f Growing stock* ; Sawtimber Stand-size class : Growing stock ; Sawtimber Thousand Thousand Thousand Thousand cubic feet board feet cubic feet board feet * National Forest 781,506 2,687,276 Sawtimber stands P2522 2,886,038 Other Public 47,615 VTS OU Poletimber stands 271,054 531,889 Private 166,614 564,740 Sapling and seedling stands 2,204 7,961 ig ope Sead Nonstocked areas 955 4,039 BS TF yg ePTFE ea Ona Tea mie ees All classes 995,735 3,429,927

sh i

International z-inch rule.

DPSU/64