TREES IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



ONE cannot realize the richness of 

 the tree flora of the Philippine 

 Islands until he is told that 

 there have already been found over 

 2,000 kinds in the Philippine Islands. 

 This means more to the average person 

 when it is known that here there are 

 probably three times as many varieties 

 as have been found in the United 

 States. When all is known concerning 

 the tree flora of the Philippines, it is 

 probable that this number will reach 

 3,000. Of course, it must be stated 

 that all of these are not used commer- 

 cially. It is estimated that 150 of them 

 are on the market at the present time. 

 Many of the 2,000 are too small to ever 

 be of any great importance commer- 

 cially. 



About one-half the area of the Phil- 

 ippine Islands, or 60,000 square miles, 

 is in public forest. Of this 60,000 

 square miles, more than one-half is in 

 mountainous regions, and will not yield, 

 at the present time, much wealth to 

 the Philippines. Indirectly they are of 

 very great importance, for upon them 

 will depend the conservation of mois- 

 ture, so necessary to extensive irriga- 

 tion schemes. Less than half of the 

 60,000 square miles can be classified as 

 forest which will yield commercial va- 

 rieties of timber. A rough estimate 

 will place the yield of this forest close 

 to 40,000,000,000 board feet. If this 

 could be placed on the market to-day, 

 at the price of our cheapest timber, it 

 would bring a total of two and a half 



billion pesos. Of this two and a half 

 billion pesos of wealth, the Bureau of 

 Forestry is the guardian. It is the ob- 

 ject of this Bureau to have the wealth 

 utilized as rapidly as it can be without 

 danger to the forests. It is believed 

 that about four times the present 

 amount used can be exploited without 

 endangering our forest. This would 

 bring the annual amount of timber put 

 on the market, from 100,000,000 board 

 feet, the present amount, to 400,000,000 

 board feet. This would leave 300,000,- 

 000 board feet to be exported from the 

 Philippine Islands, and thus bring to 

 the islands considerable wealth. 



Included in the 1,800 or more com- 

 paratively unknown woods now repos- 

 ing on herbarium sheets in Manila, and 

 bearing scientific names but no infor- 

 mation of commercial importance, are 

 many which will, in time, and after in- 

 vestigation, prove valuable. 



The rating of the relative values of 

 this assortment of trees ; the distin- 

 guishing between those commercially 

 valuable, and the others ; the testing of 

 those which have been selected as com- 

 mercially desirable, to ascertain their 

 strength and fitness ; the supplying of 

 merchants and engineers with speci- 

 mens and information and the direct- 

 ins: of all concerned how to obtain the 

 maximum good with the minimum 

 waste from our wooded lands — these 

 are a few of the problems which daily 

 confront the Bureau of Forestry of the 

 Philippine Islands. 



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