The major objectives of this study were to:

1. evaluate the financial aspects of improvement thinnings for fuelwood in Appalachian hardwood stands.

2. determine direct net energy values from energy inputs and outputs for fuelwood harvesting in Appalachian hardwoods.

The landowners decision on whether or not to thin was greatly influenced by haul distance and his opportunity cost for time spent harvesting wood. Other considerations included the market price for both firewood and firewood stumpage. Two cases were analyzed using discounted cash flows, the first considered the landowner as a firewood consumer. The results of this portion indicated that at low haul distances (< 15 miles) and low opportunity costs ($0 to 5 per hour), the landowner should produce his own firewood. At longer haul distances an open market purchase should be made and at higher opportunity costs a contractor should be hired to harvest the firewood. In the second case, the landowner acted as a firewood producer. The results indicate that at low haul distances and low opportunity costs of harvesting, the landowner can attain reasonable rates of return on the investment (approximately 4% after-tax in real terms). At greater haul distances and higher opportunity costs the investment returns diminish.

The second objective concerning energy resulted in favoring larger scale operations at longer haul distances and smaller operations at shorter distances. The major influences on energy values were haul distance and degree of mechanization.

Overall, this analysis presents a process for evaluating firewood thinnings and offers the landowner the capability of examining a variety of sites and harvest systems. However, the results should be viewed only as an example situation.