98 



Per Cents of Total Shipmknt.s froii DrpFERKXT Regions. 

 Represented by Conifers and Hardwoods 



Several important points are emphasized by these figures. Hard- 

 woods, which in 1910 supplied more than half of the raw material for 

 the wood-using industries of Illinois and in 1920 about one fifth, must 

 evidently continue to be secured, if at all, from eastern sources. The 

 central hardwood region, or states contiguous to Illinois on the east, 

 south, and west, supply but one fifth of the hardwood lumber used. One 

 third continues to come from the Lake states notwithstanding the fact 

 that two of these states, Minnesota and Michigan, are now importing 

 a large per cent of their total constimption of lumber (Alichigan imports 

 70 per cent of her lumber for all purposes). Nearly 40 per cent is ob- 

 tained from the South. In each of these general regions the supplies 

 of virgin timber from whicli these shipments are being drawn are dwin- 

 dling rapidly. 



Hardwoods usually grow on the better types of soil in these states, 

 which, when cleared, are of potential value for agriculture. There exists 

 in the Lake states a certain residue of poor soils which might grow hard- 

 woods, but, on the whole, the poorer grades of soil in these states are 

 suited to the production of conifers and will not grow commercial hard- 

 woods. This is also true of the hardwood lands of the Southern states. 

 Here the hardwoods occupy river bottoms almost exclusively, areas of 

 alluvial land subject to occasional floods, most of which, like the Missis- 

 sippi bottoms in Illinois or those of the Cache River, are capable of 

 drainage and agricultural development. The poorer tiplands are occu- 

 pied largely by pine. With the completion of cutting by present opera- 



