First of all, you should have a consultant or a mill forester come out and look at your timber. 60 walnut trees should be enough to get someone interested to at least take a peek.
Veneer is the highest quality of timber. Instead of sawing the log in a sawmill, it is sliced into thin strips. Usually the trees are put in hot water to make them flexible. This allows the knife to slice off pieces. It is then glued into plywood, with other species as filler and the walnut as top wood.
To get an idea of what veneer looks like, go to Home Depot or Lowe's or your local lumber yard and look at plywood. Veneer quality logs are needed to make plywood.
Veneer sized logs are 14" diameter at the end of an 8' log. I believe walnut may be a little smaller, but not certain. A tree that is about 17" dbh (diameter at breast height or 4 1/2' above the ground), will yield a veneer log at 8'.
For me, if I can get my arms around the tree and my fingers just touch, I have an 18" dbh tree. If they can't touch, the tree is bigger. If you have trees of this size, then someone will be interested.
Trees can be graded while standing. It takes a lot of practice, knowledge of grading rules, and an eye for how defect will cut out. The more defect in the first log, the lower the grade. If the grade is known, lumber value can be projected. Very few professionals do this, so landowners aren't expected to have much knowledge in it.
#1 common and #2 common are lumber grades. It refers to the amount of clear lumber that is in a board. The higher the amount, the more the value. There is also a FAS and a F1F grade. Again, landowners need not know this.
A board foot is a surface sq ft by 1" thick. To find board footage in a board, simply multiply length (in feet) x width (in inches) x thickness (in inches), and divide by 12.
Finding the volume in a tree or log is a little different. It is an estimate of the footage that will be cut from a log. Diameter inside bark is used in logs as is the length. For trees, use dbh outside bark, and the estimated number of 16' logs.
To get some figures, go to the homepage and you will find an area of calculators. You will find one for finding log volume and another for finding tree volume. There is also a section on cruising. It might be fun to figure out how much volume is there.
Butternut is known as white walnut. It is very similar to the sapwood in black walnut. It never develops a dark brown heart.
When walnut is dried, they first inject steam into the kiln. This will turn the sapwood brown. The butternut, if included, will also turn brown.
Lastly, (whew), you may want to contact your local extension agent, or your state forestry office. They should be able to direct you towards either consultants, loggers, or mills that would be interesed in looking at your woodlot.
