TROPICAL FORESTS AND THE WAR 515 



and parts of Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. Simmons (6) states 

 that in Parana one company claims ownership of connected forest 

 tracts of Parana pine, a large part of which is in a primitive state, 

 aggregating three billion feet and averaging about 4,000 feet to the acre. 

 There are sections where the growth is thick and large ; the stand scales 

 as high as 15,000 to 20,000 feet to the acre. 



The above are the only available figures that gi\e any indication of 

 the volume of the forests. Assuming that the estimate of an area of 

 260 million acres for the region under consideration is correct, divide 

 this area by two to make a liberal allowance for non-merchantable for- 

 ests, clearings, etc.; there will remain 130 million acres covered with 

 merchantable forests. At 5,000 board feet per acre this will give a total 

 of 650 billion feet. It is believed that this estimate is very conservative. 

 At any rate, for all practical purposes it is sufficiently accurate. 



There is nearly twice as much standing timber in this region as in 

 the southern yellow-pine forests of the United States (8), the most 

 active lumber-producing center in the world, with an annual cut of 15 

 billion feet. According to Simmons (6), the annual cut in r>razil is but 

 ]Oi million feet, which, together with 64 million feet of imported lum- 

 ber (mostly southern yellow pine), makes a total annual market supply 

 of 165 million feet. When the industrial awakening came to southern 

 15razil. it found itself in exactly the same position as the Philippine 

 Islands — a large amount of timber, but a lumber industry insufficient 

 to cope with the increased demand ; consequently nearly 40 per cent of 

 the lumber used was imported. 



Of late years the lumber industry has begun to develop, especially in 

 the Parana pine region, where logging machinery has been introduced 

 and the increased cut of native pine is gradually reducing the imports. 

 So far little, if any, effort has been made to introduce modern logging 

 methods in the hardwood forests of the coastal region. 



The resources of the Parana pine forest are limited, probably not 

 constituting more than one-tenth the total stand of southern Brazil, 

 and the country in the far-distant future will have to depend more and 

 more on its hardwood forests for light construction timbers, unless it 

 continues to import them. Already there are a number of groups of 

 light construction native hardwoods on the markets that are used exten- 

 sively for the same purpo.ses as the native and imported pines. These 

 are the cedros (Ccdrcla spp.), the pcrobas {Aspidosperma spp.), the 

 cancllas (species of the Lauracea"), the louros (Cordia spp.), and many 

 others. With the introduction of better logging methods, the still 

 lighter hardwoods can be logged at a cost that will yield a profit, 

 whereas now with the crude methods such is not possible. 



