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-TROWING up in a hardwood lJto-Uet yard i leamed a'irhmetic by tallying lumber. Once I got the hang of it, I thought it was simple. Like many o1trs1things, thougD, as I got older, tallying became morc complicated.

If you think tallyrng lumber is sinple, you could be mistaken, too. In the hadwood market today, lumber is measured in two ways - eitber based on a NET TALLY or a MILL TALLY. If you buy bardwood and you don't know Oe difference, you could be in for a big surprise.

Hardwood lumber i5 usuaily dried in a kiln. There, hot air and stean are circulated amoog the evenly seeardt€d tiers of lumber according to a cuefully devised schedule. In Oe drying process lumber loses much of its moisture and considerable weight. (See side bar) The geatest shrinkage @curs tangentielly - rcKlss the width of the hoards - and the least longitudirully - along the length. Tbe bord footage also shrinks from as little as 3Vo 1o as much as 87o of more, depending on Oe species.

A 'het tally" is a @unt of the rcual product you receive as it is measured after kiln drying. ln a net tally there is no addition for kiln drying shrinkage - the percentage of fmtage that is theoretically lost when hardwoods are dried.

A 'mill tally," on the oths ban4 is a measure of the lumber before it was drie4 and before it shrank in a kiln. It is a count of the footage that was originally sawn and NOT an account of how much footage you received.

A generation ago hardwood was cornmonly sold based on its measurement before kiln drying. Tbat meant that when one was tallying dried lumber, one had to add a percentage to account for the footage lost in the kiln. When tallying as little as 50 board feet at my father's lumber yard, we would add three feet for shrinkage. (We always noted the addition on the customer's copy of our piece tally.)