adjective
definition
Fit for the market, i.e. suitable for selling for an ordinary price. Sometimes, this is a technical designation for a particular kind or class.
Examples of merchantable in a Sentence
Even within reservations almost all the merchantable timber is owned by private individuals.
From the extreme south most of the merchantable timber had been cut, but immediately north of this there were still vast quantities of valuable long-leaf pine; in the marshes of the Delta was much cypress, the cotton-wood was nearly exhausted, and the gum was being used as a substitute for it; and on the rich upland soil were oak and red gum, also cotton-wood, hickory and maple.
The state was originally covered with a dense forest mostly of hardwood timber, and although the merchantable portion of this has been practically all cut away, there are still undergrowths of young timber and a great variety of trees.
Originally white pine was the principal timber of the Adirondacks, but most of the merchantable portion has been cut, and in 1905 nearly one-half of the lumber product of this section was spruce, the other half mainly hemlock, pine and hardwoods (yellow birch, maple, beech and basswood, and smaller amounts of elm, cherry and ash).
Among the more common trees are several species of oak, pine, hickory, gums and maple, and the chestnut, the poplar, the beech, the cypress and the red cedar; the merchantable pine has been cut, but the chestnut and other hard woods of West Maryland are still a product of considerable value.
In 1903, however, only about 12% of this was still occupied by a virgin merchantable forest and 69.8% was cut-over or culled land.
The principal merchantable timber of the state is red spruce, and this is found chiefly in the virgin forests which remain in the north, especially in those on the steep mountain slopes between elevations of 1800 ft.
Except on some portions of the Pocono plateau, Pennsylvania was originally well forested, and, although most of the merchantable timber has been cut, about one-half of the state is still woodland.
Red oak, birch, elm, ash, white cedar, hemlock, basswood, spruce, poplar, balsam, fir and several other kinds of trees are found in many sections; but a large portion of the merchantable timber, especially in the lower peninsula, has been cut.'
Iron ore, platinum, lead, quicksilver and cobalt have been obtained in the state in merchantable quantities, and there is some zinc ore in the Cascade Range.
But everywhere now most of the merchantable timber has been cut; in 1900 it was estimated that there were altogether about 7000 sq.