16 



THE FOEEST KESOUECES OF THE WOELD. 



sumption of 57 cubic feet to each inhabitant. This consumption 

 was distributed roughly somewhat as follows: 530,000,000 cubic feet 

 were sawed into lumber, 40,000,000 cubic feet were used by the rail- 

 roads, 30,000,000 cubic feet were consumed by pulp and paper mills, 

 and the rest was used by the people as round timber for construction 

 and fuel. These estimates, though crude, give some idea of the 

 consumption. 



CANADA. 



FOREST AREA. 



The forest area of Canada is estimated as 1,249,000 square miles, 

 or 38 per cent of the total land area. Not all of this, however, is 

 timber land; only about one-third, or 400,000 square miles, may be 

 taken as covered with merchantable timber, the rest being brush land. 

 According to Mr. Stewart, Superintendent of Forestry, Department 

 of the Interior, Dominion of Canada, a very large portion of the 

 Dominion forest lands is of little value for commercial purposes. His 

 estimates, which are the latest and are authoritative, give only one- 

 fifth of the 1,406,200 square miles as more or less wooded area, or 

 only 280,000 square miles can be considered as timber land of com- 

 mercial value. At an average stand of 2,000 feet b. m. per acre this 

 would give about 360,000,000,000 board feet of mature timber. 



According to Mr. George Johnson, Statistician, Department of 

 Agriculture, Dominion of Canada, the area of forests in the different 

 provinces is as follows: 



TABLE 4. Forest area of Canada by provinces. 



a Average. 

 COMPOSITION. 



The Canadian forests are stocked with a large number of species, 

 among which the three most important are white pine, found in the 

 southeast part of the Dominion; spruce, occurring over Jarge areas; 

 and Douglas fir, found principally in British Columbia. Besides these 

 there are a large number of others which play a greater or less part in 

 the lumber trade ; as, among the hard woods, ash, birch, elm, maple, 

 beech, oak, hickory, etc. The bulk, however, is coniferous timber, as 

 may be inferred from the fact that of the exports 94 per cent are 

 conifers and only 6 per cent hard woods. 



