444 UNITED STATES CENSUS FORESTRY REPORT. [Nov. 



UNITED STATUS CENSUS FOBESTRY BE PORT. 



BY SAMUEL L. BOAItDMAX, 



State Agent for Maine to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 



IN your July nunil)er you are pleased to speak in terms of liigli 

 a])preciation of the Forestry Report of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, and the work which our Government 

 is doing through this Department in aid of forest economy. With 

 your permission I wish to give your readers an idea of what has 

 been further accomplished in this direction by our Government, 

 through the agency of the Census Bureau of the Department of the 

 Interior. 



"When the force of special experts was arranged to take charge of 

 the work of our Tenth Decennial Census, in 1880, tlie forestry 

 work was assigned to Professor Charles T. Sargent, Professor of 

 Arboriculture in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

 and director of the Arnold Arljoretum ; than whom a more competent 

 gentleman for such service could not be found in our country. 

 From time to time between 1881 and 1883 the Census Bureau 

 issued special bulletins conveying summaries of information upon 

 subjects of immediate interest to the public. The forestry division 

 issued twenty-four such bulletins, many of them accompanied by 

 coloured maps, showing the distribution of certain species of trees 

 in different States, and also bearing statistics on the lumber industry, 

 fuel value of different woods, specific gravity of different woods, 

 amount of tannin in the bark of certain trees, and the consumption 

 of forest products as fuel in the United States during the census 

 year of 1879. These bulletins kept the public informed of the 

 work of the Forestry Bureau as it progressed, until the publication 

 of the final report. 



The final report on the forests of North America (exclusive of 

 Mexico), although dated 1884, was not issued from the Census 

 Bureau till near midsummer of 1885. It is comprised in a large 

 quarto volume of x., 612 pages, divided into eleven parts. The 

 general introduction to Part 1 is devoted to a discussion and 

 description of the natural forestry divisions of the United States, six 

 in number, as follows : — 1, The Northern Forests ; 2, the Northern 

 Pine Belt ; 3, the Southern Maritime Pine Belt ; 4, the Deciduous 

 Forest of the Mississippi Basin and the Atlantic Plain ; 5, the 

 Semi-tropical Forest of Florida ; and 6, the Mexican Forest of 

 Southern Texas. Interesting facts pertaining to soil, rainfall, and 



