380 Forestry Quarterly. 



logical Survey; "Timber Pines of the Southern United States," 

 Forestry Division Bulletin 13, by Mohr, etc. That some differ- 

 ence of opinion may be expressed on this classification is not to be 

 doubted, but the totals are good, errors in high and low estimates 

 compensating to some degree. 



The mature timber totals over 188,000,000 acres, which might 

 be raised to approximately 215,000,000 if all woodland such 

 as the scrub oak, juniper, and pinon lands of the Southwest are 

 included. It is evident that there is little mature timber in the 

 Lake and Northeastern States. The States included as Central 

 States have a little more mature timber, though culled forests, 

 which consist largely of mature trees, are here included under 

 growing forests, to be conservative. The Southern States are 

 figured as having one-third mature timber on pine lands and a 

 little larger proportion of the hardwoods of the alluvial bottoms 

 and southern Appalachians. The Rocky Mountain and Pacific 

 coast forests are largely mature forests. Since there has been a 

 great lumber output on the coast it might be supposed that the 

 Rocky Mountain region should have a larger percentage of ma- 

 ture forest, but the thinner forest of the Rockies and much greater 

 damage from fire have tended to lessen the mature forest per- 

 centage and greatly increase the "not restocking" percentage. 

 This large area of mature forest can not be considered as increas- 

 ing materially by growth above the loss by decay, windfalls, in- 

 sects, etc. The burned areas restocking are included under grow- 

 ing forest. 



Under the head of "Probably not restocking" the Lake States 

 lead with 38 per cent. This is due perhaps to the more complete 

 reports and forest and logging conditions which invited the many 

 great conflagrations credited to this region. The larger amount of 

 hardwood, different topography, denser population, larger per- 

 centage in small wood lots, and other factors decrease the per- 

 centage of forest not restocking for the Northeastern States. 

 These same factors — notably the composition of the forest as of 

 hard woods almost entirely with sprout reproduction — lessen it 

 still more for the Central States. In the Southern States on the 

 pine lands it rises sharply and would be still higher were not the 

 effects of fires less destructive in the more open mature forests 

 still existing. Southern hardwoods suffer much less. This is 

 due to their location in the lowlands and mountains, to the less 



