stumpage

American  

[stuhm-pij] / ˈstʌm pɪdʒ /

noun

1. standing timber with reference to its value.

2. the value of such timber.

---

stumpage British  

/ ˈstʌmpɪdʒ /

noun

1. standing timber or its value

2. the right to fell timber on another person's land

3. a tax or royalty payable on each tree felled, esp on crown land

---

Etymology

Origin of stumpage

First recorded in 1815–25; stump + -age

Example Sentences

He said stumpage prices — the price timber companies pay for the right to harvest trees — remains up about 25% from last year.

From Seattle Times

Provincial agencies set the price loggers must pay — delightfully known as the “stumpage fee” — for cutting down pines and other conifers, a.k.a., “soft” wood.

From Washington Post

U.S. producers say that this results in below-market stumpage fees for Canadian loggers — or, as the U.S. industry contends, a subsidy.

From Washington Post

That drives up the price they pay, called stumpage, and further erodes profit margins, she said.

From Washington Times

“The only reasonable explanation of this paradoxical state of affairs,” the Lumberman's editors wrote, “is that the mill men … are using up their capital, as it exists in the form of stumpage, for no other end than simply keep themselves in business.”

From Slate