NORTHEASTERN FOREST EXPERIMENT STATION 

Upper Darby , Pennsylvania 

No. 70 

1957 

Is Hardwood Nursery Stock Available? 

The amount of hardwood planting stock used in forest 

tree plantations in the United States is very small indeed. 

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The great bulk of planting stock used is softwood. Wallihan 

(4,) points out that there are several good reasons for this. 

First of all is the greater demand for softwood forest products. Another is the fact, often demonstrated in the past, 

that softwoods are much easier to establish than hardwoods. 

It is also well known that volume (but not necessarily value) yields from hardwood forests are considerably lower than 

those from softwood stands. As a result, the culture of 

hardwoods has not been studied so' intensively as the culture 

of softwoods. 

Nevertheless, there has been a continuing demand for 

hardwood planting stock, and this demand seems likely to increase. Decreases in available supplies of high-quality 

hardwood have resulted in rising prices for stumpage. It is 

evident that efforts should be made to supply our hardwood 

needs--in part at least--by planting hardwoods on favorable 

growing sites. The new Soil Bank Program may provide sites 

better adapted for hardwood plantations than the sites that 

generally have been used in the past. Foresters now recognize that hardwoods are much more sensitive to site conditions than softwoods, and require much better site preparation before planting (2). 

It is known that several species of hardwoods have 

been grown in relatively small amounts by a number of nurseries in the past. What is the situation today regarding 

the current production of hardwood planting stock in forest 

tree nurseries? 

In 1956 Abbott (1) published the results of a survey 

of forest nursery practices in the United States. He reported that 688,350,000 seedlings were produced in 1954 by 

thenurseriesincludedinhissurvey. This represented92 

percent of the total forest nursery production for that year. 

It was based on information from 112 (69 percent) of the 
public and private forest tree nurseries in the United 

states (3). 

Of the total production, nearly 18 million trees, or 

slightly over 2$ percent, were of hardwood species. Though 

small when compared with the number of softwoods produced, 

this figure indicates that a fairly substantial number of 

hardwoods are being grown in our forest tree nurseries. It 

also indicates that experience in growing them is not lacking. 

In his report, Abbott tabulated production of conifers by species. For hardwoods he tabulated only seven species and one genus (Fraxinus). All other hardwood species 

were lumped together in a class called miscellaneous.^ 

To learn what other hardwood species were beinggrown, 

and in what amounts, the basic data for the~e~~miscellaneous~ 

species were re-examined and compiled (table 1). The data 

have been grouped by geographic regions of the United States 

and by species to show where the stock is being grown as 

well as to show the species and amounts being produced. 

Seven geographic regions were recognized, as follows: 

1. Central - Lake States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

2. Intermountain States: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, North 

Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. 

3. Southern States: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. 

4. Northeastern States: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, 

Maryland, Massachusetts , New Hampshire, New Jersey, New 

York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West 

Virginia. 

5. Southeastern States : Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, 

South Carolina, and Virginia. 

6. Northwestern States: Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. 

7. Southwestern States : Arizona, California, Nevada, New 

Mexico, and Utah. 

Compiled this way (table l), the data show that several hardwood species are being grown in appreciablenumbers, 

even exceeding, in some instances, species for which pro- 
duction figures were given in the survey report. Sugar maple 

and paper birch are two of these; they rank 7th and 15th respectively in the listing. 

Table 1.--1954 production of hardwood planting stock in the United States, by geographic regions 

(In thousands of trees reported produced) 

It is interesting to note that the Central-Lake 

States kegion accounted for 59 percent of the total hardwood 

production and that 26 of the 32 species listed were reported from this one region. The Intermountain and Southern 

States accounted for an additional 28 percent of the production and reported 16 species. The Northeastern and Southeastern States were responsible for 10 percent of the production and reported 12 species. The remaining 3 percent of 

the production came from the Northwestern and Southwestern 

States. 

Rank 

+ 

Four species (black locust, green ash, yellow-poplar, 

1 Black locust 2,913 - 643 690 157 182 17 4,602 

2 Green ash 1,816 655 300 - - - 44 10 2,825 3 Yellow-poplar 1,735 381 10 232 - -- -- -- 2,358 4 American elm 92 9 689 -- 16 -- 5 Box elder 3 923 -- -- -- 6 -- 1,634 

6 Black walnut 821 -- 50 -- 57 -- -- 932 

- -- 928 7 Sugar maple 285 270 -- - -- 8 Chinese elm 66 72 300 -- -- 52 16 555 

- -- 506 9 Catalpa 60 337 -- -- -- - -- 397 10 White ash 23 5 13 71 -- - - -- 319 11 Cottonwood 4 230 66 17 -- - 1 -- 317 12 White oak 301 9 -- -- - - -- -- 311 13 Red oak 20 5 78 -- - - - - - 283 14 Eied gum 195 30 225 

15 Paper birch 1 - -- 219 - - - 220 

16 Sycamore 146 -- 57 -- - -- - 203 

17 Osage orange 70 - 100 -- -- - -- 170 

18 Red maple 148 -- -- -- - - - 143 

14 'dillow Spp. 28 16 -- -- - 34 5 83 

20 Black maple 78 - - - - - - - - 78 

21 Silver maple 33 - -- 35 - 68 

22 Chestnut oak 45 10 - - - -- - 5 5 

23 Lombardy poplar 32 - - - -- 10 6 48 

24 Flowering dogwood 32 13 - - -- -- -- 45 

25 Asiatic chestnut - - - @- -- - 0 

26 Yellow birch 35 -- -- - -- - .-... 35 

27 Swamp oak 18 - -- - - - - 18 

28 Eucalyptus Spp. - - 10 - - -- 3 13 29 Cow oak - - - - 3 -- 3 30 Shurmnard oak - -- - - 3-- 3 

31 Cherrybark oak - - - - 3 -- 3 32 Cork oak - - -- -- - 1 - 1 

Total 10,234 2,608 2,245 1,321 535 396 88 17,@7 

Percent of Total 59 15 13 7 3 2 1 100 

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and American elm) made up two-thirds of the total production 

reported. The remaining one-third was divided among 28 other 

species. 

From this information, it is evident that our forest 

tree nurseries can produce and are growing hardwood planting 

stock. Several nurseries that are not at present growing 

hardwood species have successfully grown them in the past. 

(seven nurseries whose output consists chiefly of deciduous 

trees and shrubs for wildlife purposes or of ornamental 

planting stock were not includedin this report.) From the 

number of species repsrted as being grown, 32 in all, it 

would seem that the major difficulties involved in the 

successful establishment of hardwood plantations lie in the 

outplanting phases rather than in nursery practices. Given 

the demand, our nurseries can supply a large volume of hardwood planting stock. 

Literature Cited 

(1) Abbott, Herschel G. 

1956. FOREST TREE NURSERY PRACTICES. Amer. Nurseryman 103 (6) : 17-18, 130-134. 

(2) Cope, J. A*, Littlefield, E. W., and McIntyre, A. C. 

1949. CONFEBENCE REPORT ON THE USE OF HARDWOODS FOR 

REFOEESTATION. 3 pp. (mimeo. ) Albany, N. Y. 

(3) United States Forest Service. 

1955. FOREST TREE NURSERIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 

1954. U. S. Forest Serv. 27 pp. 

(4) Wallihan, E. Fo 

1949. PLANTATIONS OF NORTHERN HARDhTOODS . Cornell 

Univ. Agr. Expt. Sta. Bul. 853. 31 pp.,illus. 

--HERSCHEL G. ABBOTT & FRANK E. CUNNINGHAM 

Mr. Abbott is Instructor, Forestry & Wildlife Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass. Mr. 

Cunningham is Forester, U. S. Forest Service, Northeastern 

Forest Experiment Station, Williamstown, Mass. 

4 AGRICULTURE-FOREST SERVICE-UPPER DARBY